I worked with Sarah Sampsel to create this interactive timeline of Ted Kennedy’s life, which has been used with coverage of his death and funeral this past week.
New Series: Fatal Flights
Last Friday The Washington Post published an investigative series, “Fatal Flights,” on medical helicopters in the U.S.
I worked on three graphics for the piece: two for the first day and one that ran Sunday. The first piece, Fatal Crashes Since 1980, combined a timeline, trend data and crash and victim information for all fatal crashes since 1980.
We also put together this timeline of the 2008 Maryland crash that uses audio and maps to piece together what happened during the search for Trooper 2.
I also created this 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.
Recent Design and Development Work
I said I was going to publish some of my recent work, so here goes. All of this stuff has been done in the past several months and has been published on washingtonpost.com.
I worked on this interactive graphic about North Korean prison camps last month. It explores the five major camps and goes into detail about camp 15. Laris Karklis did the maps, Blaine Harden wrote the text, and I did the design and build.
In April, I worked with Amanda Zamora and Alexandra Garcia on this panoramic timeline of the scene of the shooting of DeOnte Rawlings. It uses three panoramic images, a map, and multiple hot spots to lead the reader through the sequence of events that led to Rawlings’ death. I used the same technology (Flash Panorama Player’s hotspots plugin) for this as I did for the Skipjack pano piece I posted below, but I think this is a much more sophisticated use of hotspot technology.
In April we also launched the D.C. budget game, which people can use to learn more about the city budget and what programs would stay or go with varying levels of funding. Users can save their budgets and compare their choices with other users.
For Barack Obama’s first 100 days, I created this sortable photo gallery that lets readers see exactly what he was doing. Load time is pretty slow, so future iterations will be much leaner.
Scene In: This player for a new series on fashion in D.C. by Alexandra Garcia utilizes the new AS3 video player Jesse Foltz created and features a logo illustration by Noel Smart. I designed the series player and built out the functionality. A new episode comes out every other Thursday.
![[Scene In]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1NI9wgirUFw/Sp86PuFr9MI/AAAAAAAAAGY/vcjW3tiNkTY/s400/Picture+1.png)
What I’ve Been Working On
I was just poking around my old blog posts and realized that this blog is about to turn five years old on June 7. In honor of that milestone, I plan to completely redesign the blog and add some features. I’m also going to be posting some of my more recent work in the next few days/weeks.
I realize my last post was more than a year and a half ago, and a lot has happened in the interim. About a year ago, I started working at washingtonpost.com. I’ve been working on some really interesting projects, focusing primarily on creating interactive graphics, special report pages, and multimedia presentations.
Here are a some examples of multimedia projects I’ve worked on since starting at the Post:
Seeds of Peace: I did this project last July, but I was really happy with the way it turned out. Ben de la Cruz did a wonderful job on these three video stories and a Q&A video, so I had amazing art to work with for the splash page of this piece. A really incredible story of what’s going on in Uganda as civil war continues and people are displaced.
Egypt Panoramas: Post multimedia journalist Alexandra Garcia shot these beautiful panoramas of Egypt on a recent trip. I created this interface, with the pano moving behind the map of Egypt, which also acts as a menu. This project was built totally through XML, so it was really easy to reuse, as we did for the Venice Biennale.
Failing the Chesapeake: This small interactive piece acts as an anchor on the index page of the series. It features a then and now photo piece, a timeline, and several charts showing declining health of the Chesapeake. I also created an interactive panorama from a panorama Whitney Shefte shot of a skipjack, a type of boat used in the Chesapeake.
In the Moment: I did this splash design and set up the video players for this awesome piece the Washingon Post video team did on Barack Obama’s inauguration in January.
![[In the Moment]](http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_1NI9wgirUFw/Spp6yKwuoFI/AAAAAAAAAE0/1fE5fVHmbWw/s400/in-the-moment.jpg)
Israel Strikes Gaza Strip: During conflict in the Gaza Strip last December, I worked with Sarah Sampsel to create this XML-driven map of Israel that shows attack sites and gives a synopsis of the events as they occurred. We updated this throughout the conflict.
Blood on the Mountain: Also, last summer I worked on this timeline about a murder on the Appalachian Trail. I thought it turned out to be interesting and I like the way the map is incorporated into the timeline. Plus, it’s a fascinating story, which never hurts 🙂
And, to top it all off, my very first project at I worked on at the Post: Explore Nationals Park. This project incorporated video, panoramic images and a stadium rendering that we got from the firm that worked on the stadium, HOK Sport. I designed it and put together the dynamic version of some of the graphics, and Nelson Hsu put it all together. It was a great experience to work on something like this when I first arrived and Nelson was a great person to learn from.
I also plan to (finally) post some pictures from India and some stories about the trip.