Jen Christiansen
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jenchristiansen.com
Jen Christiansen
@jenchristiansen.com
6.3K followers 610 following 220 posts
Graphics editor at Scientific American • Author of Building Science Graphics https://www.buildingsciencegraphics.com/ • Formerly at National Geographic
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Such a satisfying museum day today. Lots of art/natural world parallels. Left: Fluorite with sphalerite (Peabody museum); Right: Untitled oil painting by Mark Rothko, 1954 (Yale Art Gallery).
Glowing mineral in cube form with vibrant orange, purple and red coloration. Ethereal soft geometric painting with orange, purple and red fields.
November 21, 2025 at 11:02 PM
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It was such a treat to see Kapi in person for an artist’s talk and reception for her “The Plasticene” collection today. Please excuse my poor photography of her work below, and check out proper representations on her website here ➡️ www.kalliopimonoyios.com/home/the-pla... #SciArt
Photo of a framed piece of artwork. The overall impression is that of a cut and polished agate stone, with bands of color building inward. Upon closer inspection, it’s clear that the bands are stitched together with thread. Further inspection reveals that the colorful bands are made of thin plastic materials, including food bags. Poster with this text: Kalliopi Monoyios - Hope in the Plasticene - July 23 to August 24 - Wesleyan Potters
August 10, 2025 at 12:10 AM
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Then read a companion article that focuses on increasing the joy and purposefulness that comes with embracing sustainable fashion as both art form & practicality. It includes this handy taxonomy of textile fiber types. #SustainableFashion #SciArt #Fashion www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-...
Chart breaks down textile fiber types into 2 main categories: Natural (plant and animal products) and human-made fibers (naturally-derived polymers and synthetic polymers) List of natural fibers broken down into two categories (plant-based and animal-based), with sources and examples listed. For example, “Bast (obtained from stems) includes flax/linen, hemp, jute, ramie, and some bamboo textiles. List of human-made fibers broken down into two categories; naturally-derived polymers (chemically transformed polymers from natural raw materials) and synthetic polymers (made from petrochemical-derived plastics). For example, cellulose-based naturally derived polymers include acetate, triacetate, lyocell, rayon, modal, viscose, cupro, and bamboo.
August 3, 2025 at 2:11 PM
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As fashion attention shifts to fall, are you struggling with sustainability concerns amidst the impulse to freshen up your wardrobe? @sciam.bsky.social has you covered. Click through for a thorough visual guide that will make you a more informed consumer. www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-be...
A chart maps the stages of clothing production—and beyond. The categories are: design and concept, fiber production, yarn and fabric production, textile production, consumption, and end of life.
August 3, 2025 at 1:56 PM
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I'm incredibly excited about participating in the Visualizing Resilience conference this week in Finland. Looks like June 6 streaming tickets are still available for folks that can’t make it in person:
vizknowledge.aalto.fi/index.html
Screenshot text: Our world itself has changed, as has our understanding of it, its processes and inner systems -- but never before has the pace of this change been so fast. In the context of this acceleration, we want to explore the concept of resilience -- the ability to bounce back, to endure, to adapt. What does this process of transformation look like? What can we gain from it? And how can information design help us see clearer?
June 3, 2025 at 1:56 PM
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Reefs of Time by @lisasgardiner.bsky.social arrived ahead of its Jun10 pub date.🤩 I knew I wouldn’t see my fellow Smith College geology major on campus this weekend at reunion, so I spent time with her new title at our old haunt (the science building 🧪🪨🪸) instead. Congrats on your latest book, Lisa!
Hand holding up a book titled _Reefs of Time: What fossils reveal about coral survival_ in front of a brick academic building with “Burton Hall” chiseled above the door.
May 25, 2025 at 6:19 PM
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When our kitty died a few months ago 💔 we commissioned a portrait from artist Kat Corrigan. We hung it yesterday, by her climbing tree. (Now a home to plants, since I needed something alive in the corner.) Kat was so kind. Highly recommend. katcorrigan.com
Square painting of a gray cat with yellow eyes in spare, bold and expressive brushstrokes. The painting is on an orange wall, next to a tree branch supporting shelves. One shelf holds a blooming Maranta Leuconeura plant.
May 4, 2025 at 4:33 PM
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Red Block by El Anatsui @thebroadmuseum.bsky.social
Nearly full view of ~200 x 131 inch shimmering fabric-like sheet made of folded red liquor labels connected to eachother by tiny loops of copper wire. Sheet is hung on a wall, draping down and resting on the floor. Close-u view of folded metal red liquor labels connected to eachother in a regular patten by tiny loops of copper wire.
April 16, 2025 at 11:20 PM
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Untitled (Your body is a battleground) by Barbara Kruger, 1989 @thebroadmuseum.bsky.social
Large black and white silkscreen (112 x 112 inches) straight-on view of a woman’s face, the left half in positive and the right half in negative. Three strips of red are painted across the middle, with these words in white italics sans serif type: Your body / is a / battleground.
April 16, 2025 at 11:10 PM
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Today was a good day for art viewing @thebroadmuseum.bsky.social // Mirror #1 by Roy Lichtenstein (left), Portrait of Malak Lunsford II by Kehinde Wiley (right)
Oval painted with black and white dots and wavy lines, portraying a mirror in graphic pop art style. Oval frame holding a full length portrait of a contemporary Black man in red pants and a yellow shirt against a delicate snowy landscape background with flowers and birds.
April 16, 2025 at 11:00 PM
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Micro Activism: How You Can Make a Difference in the World (Without a Bullhorn) by Omkari L. Williams
www.omkariwilliams.com/the-book
Screenshot of book promotion page for Micro Activism: How You Can Make a Difference in the World (Without a Bullhorn) by Omkari L. Williams. It includes a colorful and bold book cover alongside this text: “In this age of activism, many people who don't necessarily want to lead a movement or join a protest march are left wondering, "How can I make an impact?" In Micro Activism, former political consultant turned activism coach Omkari L. Williams shares her expertise in empowering introverts and highly sensitive people to help others find the activist roles that will be most satisfying and effective for them.”
February 1, 2025 at 2:34 PM
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Grateful to Federica Fragapane for lending her talents to the magazine for a graphic on gender equality. 📊 (Data source: UN-Women and the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs) www.scientificamerican.com/article/see-...
Photo of a portion of a magazine page. Title of story is “Progress toward Gender Equality.” Chart shows levels and trends of the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goal 5.
November 27, 2024 at 3:57 PM
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I learned lots about mucosal immunity while working on @sutherlandphd.bsky.social’s article “New Nasal Vaccines Offer Better Protection from COVID and Flu—No Needle Required.” Here’s a peek at how the graphics plan developed. www.scientificamerican.com/article/new-... 🧪🐡 #SciArt
November 17, 2024 at 8:52 PM
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Our current intern @zanewolf.bsky.social has been doing stellar work. Lots of fast-turnaround 📊 news graphics in collaboration w/intern manager @unamandita.bsky.social, and a large piece (from research to execution) for a feature article in the Oct issue 🤩 www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-...
A matrix showing the number of deaths between 1998 and 2023 by age (less than one year old, age one, two, three, four, five, six or more, and unknown), context (Forgotten, Intentionally Left, Gained Access, and Unknown) and total by age and by context. Deaths are highest in the “less than one year old” age group and among the “Forgotten” category, with numbers increasing in the “Gained Access” category for older children. Line chart shows the estimated monthly excess deaths linked to tropical storms and hurricanes from 1950 to around 2015. The vertical axis represents excess deaths per month, ranging from zero to 12, 500, while the horizontal axis spans the years from 1950 to 2015. Multiple colored lines represent individual cyclones colored by the decade in which they occurred, with thicker lines indicating hurricanes that reached Category 5 status. Key hurricanes such as Camille (1969), David (1979), Andrew (1992) and Katrina (2005) are labeled. A gray line marks cumulative excess mortality from all tropical cyclones in the preceding 172 months. The chart suggests that excess deaths can persist for up to 15 years after a storm. Timeline of Apollo and Artemis programs, with mission details. The Apollo program included more than a dozen separate missions, but Artemis has condensed its initial stage into four main flights: an uncrewed test flight of the rocket, followed by a planned human trip around the moon and then two crewed landings.
October 14, 2024 at 2:49 PM
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I was sad to miss @sadieding.bsky.social’s book event at possiblefuturesbooks.com a few weeks ago. But I was lucky enough to snag one of the few remaining signed copies of Do I Know You at the shop today. Looking forward to diving in!
Photo of a book on a wood bench. Text on cover: “Do I Know You? A Faceblind Reporter’s Journey into the Science of Sight, Memory, and Imagination // Sadie Dingfelder”
October 13, 2024 at 10:33 PM
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😍 I LOVE flipping through old issues. Many of the amazing examples in the thread below also appeared in the English-language edition. Tip: credits in the magazine used to be collected in a box near the table of contents. This chart is by Jerome Kuhl for “The Choice of Technology” by Wassily Leontief
Input-output model of an economy traces the flow of goods and services among sectors in a chart that could be described as a brightly colored self-feeding Sankey diagram. Screenshot of a box from a magazine page titled "The Illustrations," followed by a list of page numbers and artist names.
September 13, 2024 at 12:34 PM
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This article about a popular statistics game by @parshallison.bsky.social is mend-bending in the most satisfying way. www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-... And the lessons within go far beyond math. I love this excerpt in particular:
Screenshot with this text: When I ask vos Savant, the writer of the 1990 Parade column, what she thinks the enduring lesson of the Monty Hall dilemma is, her answer doesn’t involve competing theories in statistics. The puzzle, she says, is about humility. “It promotes a dandy demonstration of a human frailty,” vos Savant explains, “the disbelief that we could be wrong and the tenacity, sometimes aggrieved, with which we hold our earlier judgments, especially when we feel certain.”
July 16, 2024 at 3:42 PM
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Snuck in a few adventures with my dad this week before the rain started again.
View from a peak in Joshua Tree, looking out over mountains and hills dotted with high desert vegetation. Blue sky with white clouds overhead. Figure in foreground wearing a pack, hat and hiking posts.
February 21, 2024 at 2:19 AM
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I noticed a similar print to one of those in the yard today. (Quarter for scale.) Do you happen to know what it is? My guess is a fox or coyote. I don’t think it’s a dog because the prints track a pretty straight line, with one paw in the same spot as the other in many cases. But I’m not sure.
Paw print in snow, about 2.5x the length of the quarter included for scale. Four toes and a pad visible. Paw print in snow, about 2.5x the length of the quarter included for scale. Four toes, nail marks and a pad visible. A line of three prints in snow, in a near-straight line. Looks like each spot may have imprints from both a front and back paw.
January 8, 2024 at 10:35 PM
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Chart Spark by @allitorban.bsky.social has given me a way to frame why I enjoy experimenting w/ TikTok. Making videos (for near-zero followers) are “mini-c” creative acts for me. (She cites work by Kaufman & Beghetto for the categories). Each animation is a fun low-stakes creative challenge #sciart
Photo of book sitting on textile. Text on cover: CHART SPARK, Harness your creativity in data communication to stand out and innovate, Alli Torban
December 31, 2023 at 6:57 PM
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😍 Excited to dive into @albertocairo.bsky.social ‘s latest book (fresh off the press). As soon as Mica Kitty lets me.
The Art of Insight book held closed on a flat surface by two gray cat paws.
November 3, 2023 at 4:18 PM
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Rereading one of my favorite books this weekend as a hat tip to artist Robert Irwin, who passed away this week at age 95. _Seeing Is Forgetting the Name of the Thing One Sees_ by Lawrence Weschler.
Photo of a book sitting on a gray cushion. Book cover includes a profile of a man with gray hair and a baseball cap looking towards a geometric LED light installation, bathed in blue ambient light.
October 29, 2023 at 3:12 PM
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Began the day watching pieces of an asteroid delivered to Earth by parachute. Then headed out for an Afrofuturism exhibit (part of 6thdimension.net) and spent some time with this gorgeous piece by Alisa Sikelianos-Carter www.alisasikelianoscarter.com/blackmoon#9
Cropped view of an art panel set upon a cement floor. Light and shadows on the black on black textured surface create the impression of a viewing a planet's surface from far above—evocative of a moonscape.
September 24, 2023 at 7:25 PM
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So the natural history museum in Vienna, Austria leans a bit far in the taxidermy and cabinet direction for my tastes, but I kind of love that the main foyer features faux rock samples hanging from the wildly ornate ceiling instead of the usual articulated skeleton fare. 🪨
Looking up at a baroque ceiling with circular skylights framed by ornate arches, 7 large boulder-like rock samples float above your head. Photo from mezzanine level, with a view of a highly decorative back and white floor below, arches ahead, and a circular dome above. Large boulders are suspended from the ceiling, hanging just above eye level.
September 1, 2023 at 5:00 PM
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Spotted in the wild: an illustration by one of my favorite #SciArt folks—Mesa Schumacher—in a presentation by scientist Eddie Lee at the Complexity Science Hub (Vienna, Austria). I love presenters who include image credits. 🤩 https://eltrompetero.github.io/index.html 🧪🐡
Photo of a slide on a screen behind a presenter: green tree canopy illustrations (viewed from above) transition into mathematical drawings.
August 28, 2023 at 11:04 AM