Gabby Escobar
Designer +Work
About
Explorations
Résumé
Performance By Design
Data Visualization, Editorial, Thesis(In Progress, to be completed in April 2025)
In my thesis, Performance by Design, I am exploring the opportunities for data visualization to create data-informed visual systems.
As an athlete, I am referencing performance data to illustrate the potential for the practice of body-centric design, using body mechanics and data to influence design principles.
Data Visualization Experimentation
My first creative exploration centered on finding new, unexpected ways to engage with my own performance data. As an avid runner, I began documenting my runs by hand each day—designing unique visual systems with their own set of rules. These hand-coded frameworks generated imagery from running metrics.
Some visuals represent a single data point or run, while others combine multiple layers of information. The goal wasn’t analysis, but expression—transforming motion into form, and data into something intuitively felt rather than clinically measured.
One interesting thing that I noticed as I was mapping out the data points is how my data naturally mirrored itself in reverse. The trail was uphill on the way there and downhill on the way back and without knowing this about the trail, the data generated by my body demonstrates this.
Data Insights:
Cadence - is determined by the number of steps per minute higher cadence typically indicates faster running.
Training stress - is a data point that uses heart rate and performance history to explain how taxing an activity is on your body. Higher TS indicates a tougher effort.
Movement Tracking Photography
Using glow sticks and a tripod, I tracked physical movement to uncover patterns, textures, and begin developing a visual language for my thesis.
I became fascinated by how—even in controlled environments—the body produces unpredictable outcomes. Its movements follow semi-predictable pathways with random variation.
This is human generative design: no two motions are the same, just as no two performances are. On race day, the body’s output is shaped by training, health, conditions, and mindset—a complex equation that resists full control.
Body-Generated Grids
I wanted to explore how grids, often seen as rigid structures in graphic design, can instead activate and energize a layout. I created a series of grids generated by a runner’s form and used them as the foundation for all of my thesis materials including all 200+ pages of my thesis book.
Even within their complexity, these grids created clear hierarchy and supported compositions that remained both readable and dynamic. I also introduced visual pacing across each spread—guiding the reader’s attention by scaling and weighting key points within the text. Important moments were bolded and enlarged, while supporting content appeared more condensed, creating rhythm and flow within the layout.
Thesis Digest
For the first phase of my thesis, I designed a digest to introduce my topic, subject explorations, key findings, and personal connection to it. This is the first development of my visual language and breaking down my thesis into a story that creates interest.
Thesis Digest PDF
hello@gabbyescobar.com
+1 408 677-8339
Currently in Pasadena, CA
Résumé
2025, MFA
Graphic Design at
ArtCenter College
of Design
2023, BA
Speculative Design at UC San Diego
Illustrator
InDesign
Photoshop
Lightroom
Rhino
Keyshot
SolidWorks