Gates Coral Lab
Lost Cities

Coral reefs are dying, but there’s hope. In collaboration with the Ruth Gates Coral Lab and Caravan Labs, we created an interactive documentary that instills awe of coral to a large audience, and inspires them to learn more about their importance and how to save them.

My Role
UI/UX design – wireframes, art direction, prototyping, visual design
Content planning – research, outline write ups, content coordination

Story Details

Accessible – captioning is persistent throughout to accommodate visitors who are hard of hearing, or those who have the audio muted.

Layered content – contextual pop-ups appear throughout the videos, giving the visitor the opportunity to discover more about a topic. These pop-ups are time based and are able to be placed to call out a specific location, general location, or the entire scene. Once a call out is selected, the background dims and the video pauses so the visitor can read the text before diving back into the video.

Story Tracks and Selection

Knowing that most visitors may only had a limited time to view the site, I created 2 viewing tracks. A short and a long track. The short track takes the visitor through most time efficient story track. Related stories are also displayed at the end of a clip. For Educators or people wanting to view the stories in a more linear way, a story list view is available to browse.

Art Direction and Concept

Inspired by the polyp shape of coral, I created a phylotaxis-like shape where the stories can be mapped. A particle system was also integrated into the site to mimic a coral spawning event.

The interface is designed to feel fanciful and mysterious, while also feeling scientific and rooted in fact.

Team
Principal: Gabe Kean / Studio Producer: Sarah Trueblood / Technology Director: Edward Tang / Design Director: Claudia de Almeida / Art Director: Edrea Lita / Content Lead: Natalie Karbelnig / Senior Developer: Scott Thiessen / Designer: Isabella Vasquez

Project Partners
Filmmaker, CaravanLab: Jennifer Moslemi & Marita Davison / Director, Gates Coral Laboratory/Hawaii Institute of Marine Biology: Dr. Ruth Gates / Soundscape Composition: Jesse Solomon Clark / Film Editor: Jeffrey McHale

Awards
2021 – Communication Arts: Interactive Annual
2020 – Webby Awards: Science
2020 – International Wildlife Film Festival: New Visions
2019 – Communication Arts: Webpick
2019 – FWA
2019 – The Davey Awards: Gold
2019 – Awwwards: Honorable Mention