The Economist

2008

Role: CREATIVE DIRECTOR

Project Description:
The Economist annual special edition, "The Year in 2009" includes several data-heavy articles that the Economist wanted to transform into interactive Flash modules for their website.

The Brief:
To take data-heavy content and convert it into a compelling interactive experience while allowing for ease of data entry and editing.

The Solution:
The Flash module utilizes a simple online system of forms allowing easy update. This information populates a database which then generates an xml file read by the Flash module on the fly. Collaboration with Sebenza Sysystems LTD, who were responsible for all database and Actionscript programming. Interface design and development: visual and information design; content organization.

The World in Figures: Countries
The World in Figures: Industries

The interactive world map interface allows the user to zoom in on regions of interest.

Once the user has zoomed into a region, they receive regional information and they can click on one of the countries in that region to view financial data on that country.

Certain countries also have the option to view charts of specific financial data.

The project was designed to allow much of the actionscripting and database construction to be reuseable for the second aqpplication, "Industries". This greatly reduced the total time and cost of this second phase.