Design, programming

Published in The Washington Post, July 19, 2010

This graphic visualizes the redundancy and relationships in Top Secret America. Specifically, it shows which government organizations do what types of top-secret work, and how many companies they work with. The centerpiece is the color-wheel, which allows users to sort the government organizations in three different ways. It also has individual views of each government organization, work type, and a couple dozen companies. It is all dynamically drawn, fullscreen capable, and utilizes deep linking. For a more complete description, visit my blog.

Tools used: Flash/ActionScript 3.0, Adobe Illustrator, JavaScript

In the news: Fast Company infographic of the day, Infosthetics: Visualizing the National Security Buildup

Design, programming

Published in The Washington Post, October 3, 2009

For this story about a battle in a remote part of Afghanistan that had greater implications for the war there, reporter Greg Jaffe came to us with a ton of found videos, photo and audio. I came up with the idea to do a horizontal pane timeline that would allow us to integrate all the media into one experience instead of breaking it up into several pieces. I built this horizontal scrolling interface, which has video and audio players embedded in it. I also designed and laid out all the photography and text in the piece. I think it has a simple and easy user interface, which drives interaction with the multimedia items inside the project.

Tools used: Flash/ActionScript 3.0 with audio and video players, Adobe Photoshop, CSS

Awards: Bronze in Malofiej 2010, WHNPA Eyes of History 2010: 2nd place for Best Multimedia Package (Simple), SND Quarterly (Winter 2009)

Design, programming

Published in The Washington Post, April 28, 2010

I created these three race maps (house, senate, and governors) to correlate with the redesign of PostPolitics. We really wanted to give a complete picture of the 2010 races, so we have current race ratings (except for the House, where we have state of the race), election history, and demographics that let you see some cool patterns — like how states vote when they have a high percentage of seniors or high poverty rates. Favorite features: really cool zoom functionality, which I explain in my blog, and a slider that shows historical results.

Tools used: Flash/ActionScript 3.0

More of my map projects:
• Unemployment by County – read my blog post.
• A closer look at AIDS groups

Design, programming

Published in The Washington Post, March 15, 2010

I worked on this graphic with reporters Josh White and Maria Glod, who collected an incredible amount of information on the East Coast Rapist, a man who has been on the loose for 13 years and is a suspect in 17 cases. I organized the data into an easy-to-use interface that had the details of each case, including a small photo gallery, a google map, a quote and all the case information. The interface drew connections between the cases and allowed people to sort the cases by date, location, existence of dna samples, and the weapon used. It also featured a map interface, a gallery and a video. I used SWFAddress by asual to provide deep linking, so you can individually access the map, video, evidence gallery, and individual cases.

Tools used: Flash/ActionScript 3.0, SWFAddress, Google Maps API, CSS

Awards: SND Quarterly (Spring 2010)

In the news: Innovative Interactivity, Fast Company, Slashdot, All Things Digital by The Wall Street Journal

Design, programming

Published in The Washington Post, April 18, 2009

This project recreates the scene where DeOnte Rawlings was shot, and tries to lend clarity to what happened (there was debate about whether police had reason to shoot at him or not). Alex Garcia had shot some panoramas of the scene, so instead of just having them in a gallery, I suggested that we try to create a 3-D crime scene timeline, by using Flash Panorama Player’s hotspot technology. I had only used it once before so it took some time to set up, but I really like the effect. It gives a great sense of place and is a really powerful storytelling tool.

Tools used: Flash/ActionScript 3.0 and Flash Panorama Player, CSS

More of my panorama projects:
• Egypt Panoramas (panorama template)

Design, programming

Published in The Washington Post, February 26, 2010

This project was a video snapshot of a trip to India I went on last year. It features over 20 short videos in a player I built and designed. It autoplays from one video to the next, and allows users to jump forward and back using thumbnails, a map, or a dropdown list. It is a variation on the series player I created for Scene In, a fashion series on Washington, D.C.

Tools used: Flash/ActionScript 3.0, CSS

Awards: SND Quarterly (Spring 2010)

More video projects:
• Scene In
• In the Moment: Obama’s Inauguration

Design, programming

Published in The Washington Post, April 14, 2009

The budget game is an educational tool that allows users to make adjustments to the proposed budget to find out what is cut or gained by increasing or decreasing expenditures and revenues. It also allows users to save their budget to a database and compare their choices with those of other users. It simplifies a complex process by breaking it down to the simple math elements and letting people see how it all fits together. I designed and built all the elements of this graphic, which runs off a database created by our tech team.

Tools used: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash/ActionScript 3.0, CSS

Design, programming

Created for The Washington Post, December 2009

The timeline template takes an XML file in the embed code parameters, which allows the same flash movie to be used over and over again for all our projects. This way we can roll out changes to all our timelines, past and future. It automatically creates the time frame based on first and last year, and then places all the timeline points. It autosizes the boxes and allows for several combinations of video, photography, audio players, text and related links.

Tools used: Flash/ActionScript 3.0, XML

More timeline examples:
• FBI’s Most Wanted List (incorporates audio players)
• Deciding on a surge strategy

Design, programming

Published in The Washington Post, August 20, 2009

The first piece for this investigation into medical helicopters was “Fatal Crashes Since 1980″, which combined a timeline, trend data and crash and victim information for all fatal crashes since 1980. I also created a simple state-by-state map that incorporates filters for different data points. The map shows how helicopters are concentrated throughout the states and how helicopter numbers relate to medicare population and trips.

Tools used: Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash/ActionScript 3.0, CSS

Awards: SND Quarterly (Fall 2009); WHNPA Eyes of History 2010: 3rd Place for Multimedia Package (In-Depth)

In the news: Innovative Interactivity

Design, programming, research

Published in The Washington Post, July 19, 2009

This project focuses on five major prison camps in North Korea, which are becoming more and more visible through the availability of satellite imagery. We highlight the camps and give a close-up view of camp 15, one of the biggest camps. I did research for this graphic, and designed and built the interface, which features some really cool maps by Laris Karklis, a Post cartographer.

Tools used: Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, Flash/ActionScript 3.0, CSS

Awards: SND Quarterly (Fall 2009)