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The last big piece of the Boston Harbor cleanupJames Abundis and Dave Butler had worked on a daily graphic about an overflow collector tunnel that would radically change Boston Harbor. My task was to take their print graphic and show what it couldn't: the harbor over time. Working with Dave, I created a different image for each year. Then, with help from Monica Ulmanu, I put those images in a Javascript slide bar. |
Red Sox ages through the yearsWhen I first got to The Boston Globe, I talked with Daigo Fujiwara about potential Red Sox graphics I could do. In the course of our discussion, I realized that pitcher Tim Wakefield was on his way to becoming the oldest Red Sox player in the history of the team. I created a spreadsheet with the ages of the oldest and youngest players, as well as the team average. I then turned that spreadsheet into a CSV file to make an XML file. I first created the interactive Flash graphic, but then created a print version as well. On Tuesday, May 10, 2011, Tim Wakefield became the oldest active player in Red Sox history, including the time when the team was called the Boston Americans. He was 44 years, 281 days old, a day older than Deacon McGuire was when he played final game for the team in 1908. This was a stand-alone graphic, and I was the sole reporter. |
Patriots coach Bill Belichick's draft history with the teamAs the Patriots prepared for the 2011 draft, we wanted to show the Bill Belichick's history with the team. We broke down draft picks by year, round and conference. My favorite part is that when you click on a different category, the little football players shift to new positions and change color. This was a spreadsheet-intensive project. Reporter Greg Bedard gave me the stats, and then I put them in a CSV and then an XML file. All of the shifting around and color changes are tweens that I coded using ActionScript. |
Hospital costs for various medical proceduresA new report from Governor Deval Patrick's administration confirmed previous findings that hospitals were paid widely varying amounts for providing similar care. But for the first time it showed that even for bread-and-butter procedures that many hospitals do well, some were paid a lot more than others. I was asked to put this into an Javascript graphic. I was excited because I had used some Javascript in the past, but was still looking for more ways to learn. Daigo Fujiwara and Tom Giratikanon helped me set this up. Even the bars of the chart were coded in Javascript. |
Boston MarathonBoston Marathon legend Bill Rodgers toured the marathon route with a Boston Globe reporter and videographer, pointing out characteristics of the route. As the video was being edited, I made animations in After Effects that were featured in the lower quarter of the screen in the video. Then, using Flash, I linked to those videos in map that allowed you to pick which video you wanted to watch. |
Attempts to fight obesityBoston Globe reporter Carolyn Johnson needed a graphic explaining some products aimed at helping patients control their weight. I sifted through her source materials and worked with her to write text that would in simple terms explain these products without misrepresenting them. I first created the print version, and then created this interactive Flash graphic. |
Hospital alarm fatigueI was asked to make a graphic to accompany Boston Globe reporter Liz Kowalczyk's story explaining alarm fatigue at local hospitals. Unheard and ignored alarms and other patient monitor problems were linked to more than 200 deaths nationwide between 2005 and mid-2010, though the number of deaths could be much higher. I was asked to show a generic hospital room and identify the potential alarms that could affect a patient. I first created the interactive Flash graphic, but then created a print version as well. Liz had recorded sounds of the alarms, which I edited in Audacity and used for the Flash graphic. |
Understanding ShinglesHealth and science reporter Kay Lazar wrote a piece explaining shingles, a painful and sometimes debilitating infection and rash triggered by the same virus that causes chickenpox. I was assigned the task of creating an infographic explaining what this disease does, how it progresses and whom it affects. Javier Zarracina helped by rendering a 3D body, which I used as a base to show where shingles most commonly appears. I turned this into an interactive graphic using Javascript. |
Massachusetts commutersNew census figures showed that in Hardwick, Mass., nearly half of all commuters leave home before 7 a.m. — giving it the distinction of having a higher percentage of early-rising commuters than any other municipality in the state. I got to work Tom Giratikanon on this map showing the percentage of Massachusetts commuters who leave home between 5 and 10 a.m. Tom took a previous map of census-related data, and we tweaked it to show this information. It was a good introduction for me to the ease of using JSON files with ActionScript 3. |
Finding MarisolOn Nov. 2, Andrew and Anindita Sempere’s dog, Marisol, fled into the Middlesex Fells Reservation after being attacked by another dog. Traditional approaches were only scaring the dog, so the Semperes have tried a new approach: “comfort stations" using a small amount of food and the Semperes’ scent to lure her. I worked with Javier Zarracina on the style of this graphic, which I translated into an interactive graphic using Javascript. |
Blond AmbitionCarrie Underwood's concert in Jacksonville provided the features department a chance to look at the stroried history of blond country singers. We did a timeline for print, but wanted to do something different for the website. In brainstorming ideas, I was reminded of the stltoday.com quiz using celebrity mug shots. The quiz showed a blurry mug shot with a hint about the person's identity, and based on the picture and the hint, you had to choose who you thought it was. I pitched a variation of that for our country blonde quiz, and everyone liked the idea. I researched country blondes using the names from assistant features editor Tom Szaroleta's timeline. |
Pipeline of PainReporters Kate Howard and Paul Pinkham had been working on a package about pill mills between Broward County and Kentucky, focusing on the role Jacksonville played in that pipeline. We made a map of this pipeline for print, and wanted to create something that translated to the website. Through Brian Williamson of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, I discovered TweenLite. This project marked my inaugural use of that Flash plug-in. I'm a fan. |
Action Movie One-Liner QuizWe knew we wanted to do something fun for "The Expendables," an action movie starring the "who's who" of '80s action flicks. Assistant features editor Tom Szaroleta culled our suggestions into a list of the top 10 best action stars. In that list, he included all their great one-liners, and I decided they needed to be in a quiz. I looked up some more and then made this quiz. Similar to the 1980s quiz, there are pop-ups and surprises. |
Was it the 1980s, 2010s or both?I came up with this quiz after noticing how many 1980s staples of pop culture were re-emerging. I scoured entertainment news for items of new wave bands or 1980s franchises offering new releases. Through that, I found a gold mine of possibilities for at least two quizzes. |
MargaritavilleI had created a comic strip adaptation of Jimmy Buffett's "Margaritaville" that worked well in print but would have been awkward online. By making a simple click-through using Flash, we made the piece work online while adding some flourishes that we couldn't do in a print product. The subtle tears and cussing bubbles are second only to the talking shrimp saying "OMG" and "for reals." |
Sizing Up DowntownFor the first day of a five-day series looking at the state of downtown Jacksonville, I had made a full-page by-the-numbers look at life downtown. To give the piece a different presence online, and to give myself some simple ActionScript experience, I turned that graphic into a Flash piece. |
Anatomy of a Traffic TicketWhen I heard that a reporter was researching the breakdown of funds received from a traffic ticket, I had more ideas for the Flash version than the print version. My AME and I wanted to create something where you could see the breakdown individually and as segments that add up. |
Jacksonville Symphony OrchestraTo celebrate 60 years of the Jacksonville Symphony Orchestra, we decided to highlight each member of the orchestra. A features reporter researched the members, and helped me identify which person in the photo belonged with each biographical copy block. This information appeared online only, as a Flash piece. |
