Hey! 👋
Welcome to Kawan—our vibrant community of data heads and storytellers. We’re all about improving data literacy and sharing nuanced stories about Asia. Come hang!
AI and our need for reassurance— issue #77
AI chatbots are seemingly ready to reassure and support us unconditionally. Not surprising then that they are winning hearts worldwide. Some even prefer AI chatbots over human companions. But when we lose all friction from a relationship, what else is lost.
The Story Behind The Story of Names
The team behind our latest story on Asia's naming conventions dives into how they got inspired to produce the story, researching qualitative data, creating a speculative name explorer, and crafting relatable humorous grievances for this story.
Kontinentalist: Navigating our new editorial vision
Last week, Pei Ying shared how we’ve rebranded from a map-driven studio to a data-driven storytelling studio… with a fresh new look to…
Introducing the new Kontinentalist!
Hey! You've been part of our story ever since you first laid eyes on our stories—and we wanted to share with you what's been going on with the recent changes on our end. Kontinentalist has now rebranded into a data storytelling studio...with a fresh
We abandoned Wordpress to build our own CMS
Let Dylan and Rifqi, our Lead Developer and Full-stack Web Developer, tell you why. Abandon ship! To answer why, let us travel back in time to when Konti started, as Peiying mentioned in her article on our rebranding. In the early days of 2017–2018, most of what we
Fashion that goes beyond the surface — issue #24
Fashion isn't exactly my strong suit. Almost everything in my closet is Uniqlo—yes, it's the same boring t-shirts and shorts hanging in yours, let's be real my friends. It's cheap, simple, and good enough. But this also means I know
Kontinentalist: A fresh new look, and why we rebranded
We’ve given Kontinentalist a makeover!! Gone are the beige-brown days, and here are the purples, oranges, and pinks.
Rebranding notes from the equator (Part 2: Design)
Hello again! In this second post about our rebranding of notes for the equator, our visual designer Munirah spills the tea about…
Rebranding notes from the equator (Part 1: Editorial and marketing)
Hello! We (Bella and Griselda) will be talking about the rebranding of our newsletter, notes from the equator, in two parts here in this…
Meet the Community! Harim Jung, data viz expert and nuclear engineer
Harim is a Korean nuclear engineer by training who has worked in Abu Dhabi. She learned data visualization on her own and is an avid…
Our spiciest issue yet — issue #23
Till this day, my parents cannot enjoy a meal—even Western dishes like grilled steak or pasta—without some chilli padi, soy sauce, and a squirt of limau juice. As a young girl, I was inspired by my family to improve my tolerance for heat, starting with McDonald's
So you want to code a data story?
“So you want to be a web developer?” “Yeah! I wish I could make stuff like this too!”
Meet the Community! Ri Liu, data viz designer/developer
Ri graduated from Queensland University of Technology with a degree in Communications Design/Creative Industries/IT. She worked as a…
A deep dive into our editorial illustration process
Let me share with you how we came up with our editorial illustration direction and workflow — and what we learned along the way.