"Excellent data visualization and touching music for a very valuable cause." —juror Véronique Brossier
"Wonderful animation combined with compelling statistics makes it hard not to look through all of its content." —juror Adrian Belina
Overview: The Big Boston Warm-up sponsorship was an initiative to collect a coat for every homeless person in Boston (7,681 according to the previous year’s census), and this online hub corresponded with an installation assembled in Boston. On the site, users could raise social awareness about poverty in the city, track donations and inspire friends to donate. Completely unified content and navigation created an online environment that revealed the magnitude of the physical exhibit and broadcasted people’s interaction with the campaign through dynamic visuals.
• Project meetings began at the end of July and launched October 1—plenty of time to collect coats for the holiday season.
• Whenever a coat was donated, a unique code could track the donation on the site. Coat submissions were entered each day and instantly reflected on the site in an interactive timeline (with the current number of donated coats) and a map with a detailed breakdown of donations by area.
• A public art installation of 768 figures (each figure stood for 10 people) was used to show progress toward the goal of collecting coats and donors.
Comments by Aaron Pollick:
Was the topic/subject of the project a new one for you? "Creating a site that addresses homelessness was a new kind of project; the challenge was crafting a motivating story that everyone could relate to from research that consisted of numbers and statistics. Essentially, our challenge was to make census data interesting."
What was different about this project compared to most projects? "The great thing about working on the Big Boston Warm-up was creating a site that extended a realworld initiative into the digital space. It really showed how we can blend online and offline experiences into a single cohesive story. The original installation was going to be one statue representing one homeless person; it quickly became apparent to the client that this wouldn't be possible. We were able to accomplish it online and use the visual of the sculpture to tell a much deeper story. It was a rare opportunity to use advertising to spread awareness for a good cause."
What was the response? "The response was amazing, and exceeded our goal—we received over 7,800 coats in Boston. Part way through development, Lands’ End was so excited by the concept that they decided to go national with it. Over 33,000 coats were donated nationwide."
