Following the success of the iPad app, an exploration of American history through the lens of the documentary films of Ken Burns, the documentarian wanted to go even broader. He wanted to provide greater access to a much larger library of his film clips and to have more flexibility to continuously add and curate new content that helps create the context that leads to a better understanding of the world today.
I led the design of UNUM - a web based collection of clips from the Ken Burns library, new video content and articles, curated into separately released thematic issues. The hope is that by showing examples throughout our own history, juxtaposed with the current situation of the day, we can understand the echoes of human behavior and make better decisions for the future.
The concept for the design of the site is an abstraction of a camera shutter - all the content on the site is presented through the lens of Ken Burns, so I designed this device to be a persistent framing tool for the UI. The three large shapes - the white, gray and blue rectangles - are always on-screen, but they slide and scale into different orientations, creating the design of each page.
Each issue consists of chapters, or playlists, of relevant clips from the films of Ken Burns interspersed with new interviews and video clips that give a modern context.
The system of the site allows each clip to be associated with other related materials - articles, tweets, book reviews as well as other clips.
Earlier explorations had an interactive cover-page for each thematic issue… in this case, users could cycle through pairings of historical figures of leadership, juxtaposing the past and the current to make new connections.
The original iPad app let users watch thematic playlists as well as browse the Ken Burns library by time, film or theme.
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Client: Ken Burns/BIG SPACESHIP … Role: Design Director, Designer, Animator
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