4 / Buried Signals V2 and the Lines of Control documentary
4 / Buried Signals V2 and the Lines of Control documentary
Putting on the big boy pants.
Dear Reader,
I decided it was high time for Buried Signals to put on its big boy pants. The project is growing into a publication that curates insights and resources as well as inspiration in information design. I'm chuffed about this update because it gives me the license to interview extraordinary people working on building better stories - more on that further below!
I've been inviting Jury members to submit and approve exceptional work from all over the world, if you’re interested or know someone please email me.
Let's dive into this week's selection.
Investigative Spotlight
After dreaming and planning an interactive documentary for close to a decade, I finally got around to producing an interactive documentary. This wouldn't have been possible without my exceptional co-director Mohamad Junaid.
Lines of Control is an interactive documentary about the conflict in Kashmir where viewers can ask questions to the experts and explore an interactive map.
Visual Spotlight
Nicky Case creates shtuff for curious and playful folks. His work includes the Explorable Explanations hub where readers can learn new concepts through playful interaction.
I particularly enjoyed the Fireflies case study.
The billion-point scatterplot by Ben Schmidt is stunningly smooth, he used his own deepscatter library to visualise what is likely the largest dataset of x and y positions in the world : the European Space Agency's data about stars in our sky. Readers can interact and explore our galaxy in a vast scatterplot, the article outlines the progressive data load he used to make the project possible.
Finally I'd recommend checking out my interview with Matt Conlen! Matt produces incredible graphics and visualisations on top of running the Idyll framework.
Handpicked obsessions
Quanta Magazine's Pultizer prize winning explanatory reporting:
Brett Victor's Magic Ink essay argues that interactivity can often be unnecessary and other means may be more efficient for users.
The increasing presence of AI in creativity, and the combination of multiple AI-enhanced technologies (3D, audio, video) to create CGI like this.
And of course people who make art like this.
Check out the new Buried Signals to access research insights, interviews, resources and inspiration in visual storytelling!
