Directed By:  BLOCK & TACKLE

Creative Directors: Adam Gault, Ted Kotsaftis

Producers: Megan Anderson, Dorian Carli-Jones

Production Coordinator: Mara Henderson

Project Lead: David Jouppi

 

Design: Adam Gault, Jaimie Justen, Alphonse Swinehart

Toolkit: Jaime Justen, David Jouppi, Alex Winakor

 

Design and Animation: Stefanie Augustine, Margaret Bialis, Adam Gault, Dylan Goodsell, Jaime Justen, David Jouppi, Sam Pickett, Mike Russo, Saurabh Shriwas, Aren Williams, Alex Winakor

 

Designer & Animator for Infographic and Archival Material  

I started on this project in June, after the Titles and Archival toolkit had already been delivered. Our team was just beginning infographic development, and elements of the graphic language like typeface (Du Boiss fromVTC) and the aesthetic inspiration (Christopher Myers & W.E.B. Dubios) had been established. However, we still had work to do to finalize the style frames.

Christopher Myers works in many mediums, but we drew most of our inspiration from his VXLLRNCGNT collection. I agreed with Mr. Myers's sentiment that fabric pieces, “As a material, ... have so much to say.” Our choices in materials, cuts, colors, and styles all provide insights into the cultural zeitgeist of the time. When it came to finding textural inspiration, I began my search by finding fabrics, garments, and accessories worn by American enslavers and Enslaved during the time period.

As One Story Up fed us more data points for the infographics, I expanded my textural search to include other relevant materials. For the Capitalism infographics, I gathered bank notes from the early 1800s, as well as from the Confederacy. I also sourced images of plantations and sharecropping homes for the housing inequality graphics. As the episodes developed, the textural library grew.

At this point, the design process began. We were inspired by W.E.B. Du Bois’ data portraits from the turn of the 20th century. We returned to his unique and powerful data visualizations throughout the styeframing phase.

These gifs are a peek into the process of texturing the infographics. The textures were thoughtfully picked and blended together to add depth to each piece. In each graphic, fabrics were paired with rich imagery to add historical and modern context.

As we continued to test our system, we realized that not all moments could be appropriately depicted in infographic form. For some moments, it was more impactful to show the actual documents on screen.

This application strained our established brand. The documents needed to be legible, but also continue the aesthetic of the brand materials shared with One Story Up. After testing many options, we combined our archival toolbox aesthetic with our infographic backgrounds to create a cohesive system for document treatments.