Graphicacy: A Year of Visualizing Change

Throughout 2023, Graphicacy helped clients visualize a better world with projects focused on ending gun violence, improving gender equality, protecting the planet, and much more.

At the start of our second decade, Graphicacy continued to grow, and our efforts to Visualize a Better World gained even more recognition. We are proud to share that two of our projects made the Data Visualization Society’s Information is Beautiful Awards Shortlist — our work with Everytown for Gun Safety and the World Resources Institute.

We continued to expand our team, adding senior digital project manager Katarina Madrid, who brings years of experience and knowledge of managing data visualization projects at Pitch Interactive. Our new senior data visualization designer Batool Akbar bolsters our ability to deliver on multiple large-scale projects and adds a depth of expertise in product design. We’re also excited to be announcing a few more hires for our growing stable of data viz gurus in the coming days.

As we move forward with great anticipation into 2024, we wanted to quickly look back on some of the projects we completed in 2023 for organizations that share our commitment to driving positive change in the world:

Portraying Paths to an Equal Playing Field

We had the privilege of helping the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University create an engaging, dynamic scrollytelling experience called The Donor Gap, which illuminates the gender divide in campaign financing.

Our team provided guidance on visual storytelling, data visualization best practices, and design along with the technical acumen to build an attention-grabbing digital narrative. At the same time, CAWP’s team offered subject matter expertise and insights about the core user groups and underlying data.

The success of such work relies on empathic collaboration with our partners. Together, we strive to understand the nuances behind the numbers, the people we are trying to reach, and the story points that distill key messages with clarity and intention.

As a result, The Donor Gap transforms once static data points into an engaging and interactive interplay of facts and figures, where charts and graphs come alive to call out gender disparities.

Gender equity was also one of several focus areas for The Kendeda Fund, which approached us to help them visualize 30 years of philanthropic grantmaking. Working closely with Kendeda, we uncovered ways to show the sunsetting fund’s impressive impact using a scrolling, sound-enhanced, and interactive virtual garden.

The resulting site, From Seeds to Harvest, enlivens the fund’s work and serves as an inspiring resource for anyone interested in philanthropy.

Revealing the Truths about Gun Violence

Mass shootings remain all too common in the U.S., wounding or killing thousands of people every year. Everytown, the research arm of Everytown for Gun Safety, has updated the definition of mass shooting, increasing the number of incidents and the number of people affected by gun violence.

To effectively communicate their data on mass shootings and share proven solutions for preventing future tragedies, Everytown connected with our team and Allegiance Group to produce Mass Shootings in the United States. This powerful visualization and scrollytelling narrative earned recognition on the Data Visualization Society’s Information is Beautiful Awards Shortlist.

Telling the Story of Innovative Immigration Policy

The Economic Innovation Group (EIG) is a bipartisan public policy organization committed to creating a more dynamic American economy. To show the economic impact and advantages of high-skilled immigration, EIG tapped us to create a visually rich story that brought their economic data and statistics to life.

We worked with EIG to craft a compelling data-driven narrative, Immigration Policy Is Innovation Policy, that engaged a diverse audience and allowed thought leaders to make a case for welcoming skilled immigrants into their communities.

Depicting the Path to a Sustainable Planet

Our collective future depends on understanding the story of climate change and its effects on our planet. In 2023, we continued our work with the World Resources Institute and Bezos Earth Fund. Working with WRI, and our partner agency Outright, we created the Systems Change Lab data platform, which visualizes, and tracks, pathways to improving a wide variety of global systems — and to sparking bolder climate action.

We also designed and built the Global Plastic Laws Database for the Plastic Pollution Coalition ahead of the UN Plastics Treaty negotiations in Nairobi, Kenya, in November 2023. By tracking and monitoring legislation and policies across the full life cycle of plastics, Global Plastic Laws helps reduce plastic pollution and empower decision-makers on a global scale.

We look forward to supporting additional projects for the World Resources Institute, the Plastic Pollution Coalition, and other organizations devoted to sustainability, environmental justice, and similar causes.

Focused on Visual Storytelling in 2024

We appreciate the clients who trusted us to tell their story in 2023, and we’re excited for what the next 12 months have in store, including compelling projects with the Urban Institute, the Aspen Institute, The Pew Charitable Trusts, the Boston University Center for Antiracist Research, and The New School.

Your organization’s story matters. Let us help you tell it in 2024.

Graphicacy helps organizations like yours tell informative, provocative, inspiring stories using facts, figures, and trends to show audiences why your mission matters — and what their role is in the fight.

That’s the power of visual storytelling. It draws people in and connects them to the issue and your work on an emotional level. It creates an experience they can’t look away from. And it invites them to do something about it.

Graphicacy has created data visualizations and infographics for top-tier organizations and companies, domestically and internationally, including the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Bank, The Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health and many others.