Cops Practicing Medicine

A multimedia "scrollytelling" experience created for the Cato Institute, tracing the gradual criminalization of opiods throughout U.S. history.

Year

2022

Timeline

3 months

Category

Non-Profit

Service

Web Design

Goal

A large collection of content including a ~13,000-word white paper, transcribed interviews, and written & video testimonials on the topic was provided. The goal was to sythesize the material into a single-page "scrollytelling" experience which engaged readers with historical background and first-person accounts to humanize the issue.

Result

The content was heavily curated in order to tease out a narrative arc to the piece, using the white paper text to craft the larger structure and the multimedia assets as supplements. An aesthetic direction inspired by turn of the century advertisements was developed, based on the history explored in the first half of the piece. A "black-and-white with red" color palette was used throughout. Additional assets (such as vintage advertisements) were procured from various online image repositories. The page was built in Drupal with a small amount of custom CSS.

Bold use of vintage illustrations lent a distinct feel to the piece, drawing readers in to the era being discussed.

Select red accents throughout the piece emphasized the idea of the chronic pain patients must contend with amidst heavy opiod regulation.

Self-recorded video testimonials from doctors and patients elevated the piece from a policy discussion to a truly human story.

A balance was needed between preserving the impactful stories of patients & doctors with not overwhelming users with too much content. To address this, testimonials were presented in formats that the user can opt to engage with as they scroll – choosing to play a video, tapping to view a full story, or swiping across multiple cards of text.