2020 wrapped
Looking back at some of my important works and moments from 2020
Well, here were are, at the end of a year or somewhere in an era of a pandemic. Time seemed to stand still as we tried to protect ourselves and our loved ones in what was perhaps one of the most difficult years some of us has seen in our lifetime. And amidst all the struggles, I think it is important to look back at our lives this year and cherish the things that made us happy and pushed us to go on even on the gloomiest of days.
As I prepare to wrap up 2020, I look back at some of the exciting work I have managed to do and cherish some of the memorable moments that I managed to squeeze out from this year.
The year started like any other year, perhaps even better, because I had just returned from the lovely hillscapes of Mcleodganj.
I spent the first few days of the year travelling through Delhi and enjoying food tours with some of my dearest friends. Little did I know then, that it would be the only leisure travel I managed to do this year. Glad that I had taken that trip!
Back at work, I started by looking into the crisis of the internally displaced people in Syria. On the other hand, the other end of the world was already dealing with the wildfires, threatening human and wildlife like never before. However, I had to switch focus to another crisis of biblical proportions — the locust invasions in East Africa.
As we moved on to March, we realised there was a new supervillain on the block — the novel coronavirus. However, in a matter of two weeks, it crippled Europe, ruining whatever plans of travel I had made around Easter. Everyone had suddenly shifted focus to COVID-19 news, but I believe we were yet to come to terms with the fact that it would continue to be the only thing in the news for months to follow… (and now, even into the new year!)
One of my first COVID-19 stories was one about lockdowns in Europe. The European Union closed its borders to foreign travellers on March 16 in an attempt to contain the spread of COVID-19 in Europe.
March was important to me for an important life event — I graduated and received my Masters’ degree in Information Design from National Institute of Design, India. In hindsight, it was also a chance to meet all my friends for the last time in a long time!
The country went into lockdown in the last week of March, and after that it was more or less the same — stuck at home, worrying about groceries, cooking, doing the dishes and hoping for this phase to get over soon. I still think I am in March, and now we are going to skip to the next year!
Life had gotten slow around this time. I was struggling a bit to find stories to tell about the virus. So I took some time to pick up some new coding skills and used them to tell the story of how the coronavirus death toll compared among countries, focussing on the exponential nature of the pandemic.
It was also around this time during the lockdown that I had begun cooking with extra enthusiasm because I had the chance to feed not only myself but my flatmate as well. This eventually led me to start an Instagram showcase of my culinary explorations. I cooked not just because we had to eat, but also because cooking feels therapeutic to me.
In May, there was a huge oil spill at a power plant in the Arctic, which got us looking into one of the underlying causes — the ground weakening due to thawing permafrost, putting life and infrastructure in the region at risk in the near future. The research dragged on for a bit and we finally put together a visual narrative explaining the process of permafrost thaw and its impact on global climate change.
This is one of my favourite stories I worked on this year. I have a special corner in my heart for environmental themes and I believe this project helps bring to light an alarming facet of the global warming narrative. It was a great learning experience — from sharing extensive email threads with scientists to collaborating with climate reporters. Plus, totally love Michael’s illustrated landscapes, which made the piece spring to life.
The other big project that I had the pleasure of contributing to is the Reuters COVID-19 Global Tracker. It was a team of three people, working tirelessly for nearly three months to create a dedicated tracker for coronavirus-related stats, while a dedicated team of reporters collected and maintained the database, and continues to do so…
The project won a couple of awards at the Society for News Design Awards 2020 and won “Graphic of the Year” at Reuters Journalists of the Year 2020.
We have so many trackers, this one stands out because it’s so well designed. You have to change and adapt those graphics all the time and it’s still so polished. There’s a lot of detail and nuance in these well edited graphics. The data is very simplified and there’s a lot of context throughout. We’ve seen so many dashboards, but this is how I want dashboards to look like.
– Judges, Best of Digital Design competition at SND42
What started for me as designing two charts, ended in a much greater involvement over a span of two months. From solving tricky information design problems to coding extensive stylesheets, I learnt a lot from Jon McClure and Gurman Bhatia during the course of one of my biggest project at ReutersGraphics.
This is what my GitHub contributions looked like at the end of the project.
…And just like that, we are in the last leg of 2020.
There was quite some breathing space in October after a hectic couple of months. So I decided to give Inktober2020 a shot. I stopped short, yet again, by nearly a week, but I totally enjoyed the journey and learnt a few things in the process!
Amidst all the coronavirus chaos, November was mostly about the U.S. elections. I played a small role in the reporting with a graphic showing how the 2020 presidential election saw a record-breaking turnout.
While the virus is still here to stay, changing forms and terrorising human life, a slither of hope emerged as coronavirus vaccines came closer to becoming a reality. By the end of the year, a couple of vaccines, based on both traditional and novel technologies have been put to use in a few countries. However, every vaccine has its own set of requirements in terms of handling and transportation. So, in the last piece of the year, we looked at how the top three vaccines would travel from labs into the arms of the people.
This project was particularly challenging due to the fact that there was no one concrete dataset or source of information. So, during the research, I had to first figure out what all am I supposed to know about them, collect and collate the information and verify the facts from reliable sources.
In the end, it turned out well, and as we move on to next year, I am glad we could wrap 2020 up on a hopeful note!
Now that we have reached the end, one of the positive realisations I have had is that I have been able to spend a lot of time at home with family, which is unlike any other year in recent memory. Maybe this year was about putting life on a pause for a while and cherishing the things that really matter!
Even in all the darkness, here’s wishing that we find a shimmer of light as we step into a brand new year!
