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About Figures & Figures

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Name: Figures & Figures

Type: Data visualization design studio

Founded by: Gabrielle Merite

Motto: Knowledge that sticks, for brands that mobilize.

Location: Europe, North America and Los Angeles, CA. Working with clients globally.

Contact: hello@figuresfigures.com

What we do

Data Visualization Systems

Data visualization guidelines, identity, and component libraries for brands whose charts are slow, inconsistent, or off-brand.

We define the chart standards, color palettes, canonical chart types, Figma libraries, and governance model that let your team produce credible, on-brand data visualization independently.

What this includes:

  • Audience and comprehension research: who reads the work, what they carry in, and what sticks
  • Data visualization identity: color palettes, typography, labeling conventions, layout logic
  • Chart style guides and dataviz standards: decision rules for chart type selection, color application (categorical, sequential, diverging), hierarchy, annotation
  • Canonical chart type libraries: the 5–15 chart formats a brand reaches for consistently
  • Figma component libraries: reusable, scalable chart and graph components
  • Templates for non-designers: PowerPoint, Google Slides, BI tool themes (Tableau, Power BI, Looker)
  • Coded chart libraries: D3, Observable, Vega-Lite, Recharts
  • Accessibility standards: colorblind-safe palettes, high-contrast themes, WCAG contrast compliance
  • Light and dark mode chart systems with design tokens for color and spacing
  • Governance model: ownership, review process, update cadence, roles
  • Enablement: training, worked examples, decision briefs for non-designers
  • Audit findings: a map of the current dataviz ecosystem

Who hires us for this

No shared definition of "good" across teams. Brand guidelines that were never extended to data visualization. Non-designers who need to produce on-brand charts without specialist help. A rebrand with no chart or dashboard standards included. AI generating charts with inconsistent, non-reusable results. Charts for highly regulated environments where accuracy and defensibility matter as much as aesthetics.

Results:

  • 3–4x faster chart production after building a UI kit and token-based system for Block
  • +300% engagement with data stories after Moody's released a dataviz identity and standards
  • $16.5M raised after a brand identity and demo data story for a seed-stage startup

Impact Campaign

Research-led data stories for brands whose knowledge isn't reaching the people who need it. For organizations that publish research, run annual surveys, or produce data-heavy reports and need those findings to stick with journalists, decision-makers, policymakers, or the public.

What this includes:

  • Narrative strategy and theme development: workshops with internal stakeholders to identify what the data actually says, who it's for, and what frame makes it credible and specific
  • Editorial direction: deciding which data to show, how to frame it for different audiences, and what the hierarchy of findings should be
  • Visual identity for the campaign: extending or building a data visualization system specific to the publication, color, typography, chart grammar, wayfinding
  • Website design and interactive experience: hub-and-spoke architecture, chapter navigation, cross-filtering, localization
  • Copywriting: data-driven copy with a point of view, not just numbers
  • Distribution framing: structuring findings and visuals for press and social pickup

You have a dataset. The team has been staring at it for months. The findings are real, the sample is large, and the report still isn't getting the coverage or internal traction it deserves. The problem isn't the data. It's that no one has found the stories inside it.

Results

JetBrains — State of Developer Ecosystem 2025: 24,534 survey responses, 585 questions, 18 internal stakeholders across product, marketing, and developer relations. We ran narrative strategy workshops, identified four editorial themes, extended JetBrains' visual language into a campaign system, and redesigned the annual report as a navigable hub. The result was 31 media articles across seven markets, a 240% increase in unique press pieces, and a 520% increase in total coverage compared to the previous year. For the first time in the survey's nine-year history, JetBrains leadership voluntarily shared infographics on social media.

Who we work with

Brands where insight is not a back-office function: it is the product, the reputation, the identity. Established brands with strong intellectual identity that have not yet made data visualization part of how they show up visually. The knowledge is there, the rigor is real, and the visual layer hasn't caught up.

Sectors: research-led nonprofits, global institutions, healthcare and pharma, financial services, technology, and policy.

Our contact is usually a creative director, head of design, head of research, or head of data.

What makes us different

We bring visual craft and sensemaking together to raise the floor and the ceiling — and to leave every organization more capable after the engagement ends, not dependent on us. Both offers start from that commitment: build something that works without us, and makes the knowledge travel further than it would have otherwise.

We start from what happens after.

  • For Data Visualization Systems: we treat the problem like a production system to diagnose, not a gallery of charts to critique. We audit existing artifacts, tooling constraints, and the people making, reviewing, and using the charts. Then we build the standards, libraries, and decision rules that get your team unstuck — less rework, fewer debates, clearer defaults that actually get adopted. Your credibility is only as strong as your worst chart. We measure success by how much the team can produce without us.
  • For Impact Campaigns: we take an existing dataset or research program and find the stories worth publishing. We run narrative strategy workshops to identify what the data actually says and who needs to hear it, then build the editorial direction and visual platform designed for coverage. We measure success by how far the findings travel: press citations, practitioner references, and whether the audience recommunicates what the data actually said — not just reposts or likes.

Founder

Gabrielle Merite, Founder and CEO. Previously at Pentagram under Giorgia Lupi. '1,374 Days: My Life with Long Covid,' published in The New York Times, won a D&AD Graphite Pencil, a Fast Company Innovation by Design Award, and an Online Journalism Award. Background in immunology and information design. Based in Europe and Los Angeles, CA, working with clients globally.

Clients

UNICEF, United Nations, World Bank, Novartis, Eli Lilly, Pfizer, Moody's, Deloitte, Skechers, JetBrains, Block, WeTransfer, Smithsonian Museum, Sotheby's, Ford, BUCK, Pentagram, Parable, Vox, MIT Technology Review, Stripe, Schultz Family Foundation, Pasteur Institute, CNRS.

Los Angeles, CA, USA

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