Role

• Art Direction/Concept

• Branding

• Project Lead

Result:

• Platform launched and highly reviewed at the U.N. General Assembly in New York City

• 30+ countries participating and providing data

• Continuing engagement from the academic, NGO, governmental, and policy communities

Bringing Data to Life

One of the major challenges for the Asser Institut was that the data related to foreign fighters was crucial but, well… boring. Long spreadsheets aren’t the best way to draw conclusions, nor are they the best way to spur policy makers to collaborate or implement new solutions. For this reason, the data was deeply analyzed, and in close collaboration with the team at Vignette, designed into stunning interactive visuals.

Going Deep into Policy

While visualization was key to highlighting global trends and demonstrating the value of sharing data, the team at Asser wanted to provide deep insight and draw in depth connections. Over 200 source documents were uploaded to the system, meaning that a robust sorting and search mechanism needed to be implemented. The best part about having all this research at hand was that we could pull it in whenever it was relevant. Viewing data on French foreign terrorist fighters? Here are five academic articles about that phenomena in France, and two documents outlining France’s current policy positions.

Interconnecting Data

In the same way that sources were linked to the visualizations, the visualizations linked to each other. The Knowledge Hub launched with three full-featured interactives, each of which had numerous connections and links between each other and the source documents. By moving fluidly between all three, researchers could quickly grasp the situation on the ground, as well as current policy responses, recommended improvements, and the political state-of-play in each participating nation.

Custom Communication

The data and topics we were dealing with could only be adequately and sensitively addressed by designing custom icons. These icons were then provided to the client along with a full toolkit for mapping and charting, so that the additional insights gained by researchers could be quickly visualized and shared. The Knowledge Hub was given a feed so that the newest insights could be quickly viewed and shared around the world.