What do you get when you cross stock market charts and a Nike visual innovator? The answer is awe-inspiring images of landscapes pulled from stock market data that provide a sense of visual calmness. When one thinks of the stock market, let alone stock charts, visual beauty isn’t the first thing that comes to mind. Now, I’m not an expert on the stock market, but ideally, these data finance charts are typically “beautiful” in the literal sense when stocks are up. However, Gladys Orteza used her graphic design and visual innovation background to flip the script on how the general public can view stock charts.
The Oregon-based designer pulled from her Pacific Northwest environment to create images of sunsets, city-scapes, and open fields using the stock market’s fluctuating data results. Granted, her work does not aim to help interpret stock market charts and trends. Instead, she utilized this data as a medium to create art and explore ways to visualize information in a fun way. What started as a project exercised during the recent COVID-19 pandemic, Orteza took to Instagram to showcase her visual interpretations of stock market data for companies like Spotify, Tesla, Exxon Mobil, Disney and many others. With her first Instagram post dating back to July 2020, her unique data visualization approach to these finance reports has opened up a new way to communicate and interpret data.