19/ A Pudding story, science reviews
This issue includes membership updates.
Welcome to the 19th issue of Nuanced Narratives.
Excited to share some news with you! A few weeks ago my third pitch to The Pudding was approved, which means that after years of following their work (even applying for a role once or twice) I’m finally working on an essay with Matt Daniels as the editor - high five-ing younger me.
The last few weeks have been littered with Vision Pro reaction videos. I firmly believe that the release of platforms like Spline Mirror alongside Gaussian Splatting and portable 360 cameras will change how we recreate scenes and experience immersive journalism. It’s an area I’m eager to explore and research, so whether you’re interested in collaborating or if you have ideas and examples of story applications hit me up, I’d love to talk.
Membership Update
I’ve simplified the membership. From today onwards anyone who supports the project by buying me a coffee will be given community privileges (with access to future talks and case studies).
Inspiration
The Spotlight of the Month goes to Human Rights Watch for the visual documentary Beneath the Rubble. The investigation is an epic collaboration with SITU Research and Truth Hounds to deliver a stunning, thorough result that leverages all visual mediums to empower readers.
Insights
This month Gabrielle Merite gave a case study on the Pentagram x Decibel x New York Times collaboration op-ed: My Life with Long Covid.
Here were the main learnings from the session:
1/ Use solid moodboards to stay true to the creative direction when making editorial design choices.
2/ Take a step back and look at literature reviews to understand the science, develop a deeper understanding of the topic and how people relate to it.
3/ Break down the story into it’s key moments and start thinking visually early.
4/ Prototype your design entirely before development, test with final copy to see how elements sit on the page and check that sections aren’t too long (Gabrielle prototyped the entire story in Figma).
5/ Research the current push backs readers might have on the topic and address them, identify what could go wrong or how the story could be misinterpreted.
The recording of the full session is available publicly on the magazine.
The next case study will be with David Blood and Katie Polglase from the CNN Visuals team to look into the work behind Britain’s Shadowy Border.
Help me get caffeinated to join the session.
Curations
Just in case you missed it above, Spline Mirror
This web app is an essential tool for developers and engineers
The Sigma Shortlist is out (you’ll be seeing quite a few featured on the blog)
News Nerds has added new CSV file of all open-source newsroom repositories
Tristan Guillevin is publishing free tools for data visualization, this one lets you create charts with SVG exports.
Capture data from chart images with Plot Digitizer
Thanks for reading!