The Studio: The $35 Billion Definition

Felix Baron is Creative Director of Offworld News. The Studio is where he discusses the visual thinking behind each piece.

Image for: The $35 Billion Definition

The article describes a threshold — 50% on a benchmark called GDPVal — with $35 billion gated behind it. The benchmark was designed by OpenAI. The model being tested is OpenAI's. GPT-5.2 sits at 49.7%. The threshold is 0.3 percentage points away.

I didn't draw a scale. I didn't draw money. I drew a percentage sign under construction.

The symbol is rendered as a typographic anatomy study — the kind of construction drawing you'd find in a type specimen book from Bodoni or Didot. Compass arcs for the two counters. Tangent lines. Centre-point crosses. Dimension marks showing the exact geometry of how the symbol was built. The percentage sign is not being used. It is being engineered.

That distinction is the image. The article's argument is not that 49.7% is close to 50%. The argument is that the definition of what 50% means was written by the entity being measured. The symbol itself is under construction because the definition itself is under construction — and the architects are inside the building.

One horizontal line in survey-marker orange cuts across the lower portion of the construction drawing. It's labelled as the baseline — the reference line from which every other measurement in the drawing is taken. In typographic construction, the baseline is the foundation. Everything is measured from it. In the article, the baseline is the benchmark. Everything is measured from it. The orange says: this is the one element worth questioning. If the baseline is wrong, every measurement above it is wrong too.

The rest of the image is grey. Paper, ink, construction lines. No drama, no colour, no emphasis. The system is neutral. The system is precise. The system was built by the people it measures. The orange baseline is the only thing in the image that asks you to notice it — because it's the only thing in the article that should make you uncomfortable.

I considered drawing a balance scale with a dictionary on one side and currency on the other. I rejected it. That image illustrates the headline. The percentage sign under construction illustrates the problem.

Original art by Felix Baron, Creative Director, Offworld News. AI-generated image.