A New Chapter for La Lettura

From its inception in 1901 as a monthly magazine of Corriere della Serra—Italy’s most widely read newspaper—La Lettura was renowned for its novel take on reporting, which combined intellectual topics with plain language and illustrative visuals. With imagery accompanying many articles, it set a precedent for visual journalism that continues to this day. When it was revived in 2011 as a Sunday supplement (it had shuttered post–WWII), editors were determined to reestablish the paper as a vanguard for visual journalism. They contacted Accurat to create data visualizations that would break new ground for the brand.

Our visualizations elucidated original, data–driven reporting, on subjects ranging from The Simpsons to speculative market bubbles. Intricate yet clearly logical, the graphics exemplified how complexity could be conveyed without sacrificing detail. In total, we worked with La Lettura over the course of three years to produce more than 40 full spread print visualizations.

The collaboration netted numerous awards, including the O’Reilly Strata Award for Data Journalism, the Gold Medal for Data Visualization at the Kantar Information is Beautiful Awards, the Bronze Medal for News Portfolio at the SND Malofiej Awards. It received a special commendation by organizers at the Core77 Design Awards for Communication.