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Alex Lim
Home page of "Since Parkland" displaying site title and photos of child gun violence victims on a dark background.

Since Parkland

I was responsible for data/API integration, building our proof of concept and implementing the site’s search functionality.

In this case study:

  1. Context
  2. Process
  3. Takeaways

1. Context

The 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida highlighted a gap in the media's coverage of gun violence. School shootings make national news, yet, everyday, children are killed by guns and their stories go unheard. Two hundred teen journalists came together to tell those stories in collaboration with The Trace, the Miami Herald and McClatchy. My team at Upstatement worked with The Trace to design and develop a data- and humanity-driven website to commemorate these victims and communicate the scale of America's gun violence epidemic.

2. Process

I joined the project at the start of development and focused first on building our proof of concept. At this point, my team had more or less completed the visual design and user experience of the site — with exceptional attention to the sensitivity of the content and an emphasis on data humanism: how these children lived rather than how they died.

Data were stored in Airtable which served as the hub in which the journalists worked. On our end, we used Jekyll, and I took the lead on integrating Airtable's API to pull data and generate site content. Continuing that work, I leveraged Algolia's API to build the site's search functionality and the page to display the names of all 1,200 victims, the design of which was inspired by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

Development of the "name wall" was one of my biggest contributions to the project.
Victims without photos are represented by unique star graphics that are generated from their name and age.

3. Takeaways

This was my first project during my apprenticeship at Upstatement and it was certainly full of many firsts. For many of us on the team, it was our first time working with this tech stack. It was my first time collaborating with journalists and editors and my first time working so closely with clients in a studio environment. Above all, I really felt like I was a part of a team for the first time (as cheesy as that sounds). I was able to learn so much both from and alongside my team members through the challenges of a difficult and heavy project. I'll always remember how we ordered pizza the evening before launch and ended up staying in the office past 9pm when our build suddenly broke.

It was really inspiring to see the public’s response to the project and the conversation it was able to reignite around gun violence. This kind of work is the reason I decided to pursue a career in journalism — it reminds me that, as a designer-developer, I can make an impact.

"Since Parkland" has been recognized by a number of awards since it's publication:

View the full project at sinceparkland.org.