Sep 24, 2024
Scrollytelling
Globalization, Unfolded
MISSION
A multimedia "scrollytelling" experience created for the Cato Institute, examining the benefits of globalization by tracing the journey of a t-shirt.
ROLE
Digital Producer & Lead Project Designer
APPROACH
This single-page multimedia experience was developed as part of the organization's “Defending Globalization” project. We aimed to create an engaging, visually rich journey through the production of a simple t-shirt, from design to sale, mapping all the locations across the globe involved along the way. "Globalization, Unfolded" opens with a video showcasing the steps of production and animated text setting the scene for the t-shirt's journey. As users scroll down the page, text and data visualizations appear and dissapear, with the primary element of the story being the marked globe that users can interact with.
RESULT
The page was built in Drupal with a small amount of custom CSS, GSAP Scrolltrigger animations, and embedded data visualizations. Subtle text animations and a scroll indicator were employed to immerse users in the progression of the story. All aspects of the design, from interactivity to imagery to stylistic CSS elements to signifier icons, communicated the t-shirt's "journey" across the globe in some way. Data visualizations created by the Data Visualization team were the focus of the piece, including an interactive globe, where users scrolled through color-coded steps of the journey and could click on specific locations to reveal tooltips to learn more. An interactive 3D t-shirt was also featured in the piece.
