Scrollytelling

Back in 2015, I came across a post on Reddit that stopped me in my tracks.

The original visualization is no longer available, but you can still find an example at this link. I was genuinely impressed by the design and the “scrollytelling” experience... although at the time, I didn’t know the name for it. Later, The New York Times published a few pieces that followed a similar pattern, along with sample code, and I remember having only one thought:

I have to build something like this.

That urge stayed with me for months, but as usual, I never quite found the time.

Around that same period, I had an intern on my team at a fashion/shoes company. She had four weeks left before her capstone project, which she would present to the entire company. So I told her, “Let’s build a shoe timeline”... something inspired by the OG music timeline and add some scrollytelling effects.

Essentially, the idea was to show shoe sales volume over the years and how consumer tastes changed over time.

Four weeks later, we had a working prototype. It looked spectacular. But, like many of the coolest projects I’ve worked on, the intellectual property belonged to the company. I can’t share it... even if I still had access to it.

Fast forward 11 years, and the urge never really went away.

So I finally decided to build my own scrollytelling project.

Here’s the code: [link]

And here’s the final result: [link]

It matters not how strait the gate,

      How charged with punishments the scroll,

I am the master of my fate,

      I am the captain of my soul.

-- William Ernest Henley, "Invictus"

— Z