Constellations, Nature’s Birth Chart
It’s almost the end of Q1! Three months into the year, and somehow, I’m already halfway through my master’s course at UAL. Insane. A reminder that time moves fast, one moment, you’re setting New Year’s resolutions, and the next, you’re rejigging your summer plans because the summer body resolution didn’t quite pan out.
Alongside this milestone at UAL, we recently had our WIP (Work in Progress) show. My theme? Birthdays. Now, I know what you’re thinking, a bit of a dull topic, isn’t it? But hear me out. I’m in a class full of stars (both metaphorically and literally), so to honor this, we mapped our birthdays onto the actual stars in space a natural birthday calendar.
Each zodiac sign groups a set of birth months together, so I created a VR experience that plotted not only my classmates’ birthdays but also other special events e.g. the birth of star wars. Turning the night sky into an interactive, celestial timeline. Seeing people interact with it was, wait for it… wild.
Data in the Wild
Welcome back to Data in the Wild, the series where we highlight everyday examples of data visualisation in action. As always, it’s a pleasure to be writing for an audience who hears, Where does the Excel team go to drink after a long day? and immediately thinks: the formula bar! This time, we’re looking at constellations, Nature’s Birth Charts.
Mapping Time in the Stars
Long before we had Google Calendars or birthday notifications on social media, humans used the stars to track time. The twelve zodiac constellations, which form the basis of modern astrology, were originally data markers for the passage of time. Ancient civilizations noticed that certain star patterns appeared in the sky at specific times of the year, helping them create seasonal calendars that informed farming, navigation, and yes birth dates.
The Babylonians, around 3,000 years ago, were the first to divide the sky into twelve sections, each aligned with a star constellation. These celestial markers later evolved into what we now recognize as zodiac signs, each linked to different birth months. So, in a way, constellations were the original data viz for birthdays, a cosmic infographic written in the stars.
Star Signs as Data Clusters
Whether or not you believe in astrology, zodiac signs are a great example of how humans have grouped and visualized large sets of birth data over centuries. Each zodiac sign clusters people born within a particular date range, forming a kind of categorization system, one that just happens to be mapped across the night sky.
From an information design perspective, the way astrology divides people into different personality types is similar to how modern data science groups users into segments based on behavior patterns. Think about it:
- Just like horoscopes assign traits based on birth months, data analytics clusters consumers into personas for targeted advertising.
- Just as constellations organize the sky into recognizable patterns, we organize datasets into meaningful visual insights.
Ancient civilizations may not have had dashboards or algorithms, but they were already using the stars to structure, track, and communicate seasonal cycles and human life events.
A Celestial Data Dashboard
Looking at the stars today, it’s fascinating to think of them as a giant natural dataset, a visualization tool that has guided civilizations for millennia. Whether for tracking time, planning harvests, or mapping birthdays in a VR experience (which I may be featuring here in the near future), constellations remind us that data visualization isn’t just a modern invention; it’s been shaping our understanding of the world long before we had screens and spreadsheets.
So, the next time you look up at the night sky, remember: you’re staring at one of the oldest, most beautifully mapped datasets in history. And if you have no one else to celebrate your day with, there is a star out there shining just for you
See you next time when we uncover more Data in the Wild!