Documentary, Advocacy, & Identity

A Human Face for the AIDS Epidemic

The Emmy and Webby-winning website "Live Hope Love" used a blend of poetry, photography, video interviews, and music to create a deeply human and emotive online experience.

The site's organising structure, and the poems are the IA. "HOPE: Living with HIV in Jamaica" over FEATURED POEMS and a poem list — Hope's Hospice · Coffee Break · Nichol · Live Up · Making Ends Meet · Unforgiveness · Portmore News · Fear · A Vani[ty]. Navigation by poem title, not by topic or date.

Clients/Partners: Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting, Bluecadet
Roles: Lead Developer
Industry: Documentary, Advocacy, & Identity
Deliverables: Development , Interaction Design
Recognition (Summary): National Academy of Television Arts & Sciences, Knight Foundation, South by Southwest (SXSW), HOW Magazine, Webby Awards, Adobe, Communication Arts

Overview

01 / Problem: For the Pulitzer Center, poet Kwame Dawes and photographer Joshua Cogan documented people living with HIV in Jamaica, at a time when such subjects were usually anonymized. The site had to let the poems, images and voices speak without overwhelming the viewer.
02 / Design Challenge: As Bluecadet's Lead Developer, Russ designed the interactions and built the site, working from the visual designers' mockups.
03 / Approach: The 22 poems are the navigation, each paired with a photograph. Vital Voices names and portrays the people Dawes wrote about, with their own words grouped by the topics they chose.
04 / Outcome: Captures of the finished site survive. Per the case study it won a News & Documentary Emmy and a Webby People's Voice Award, which measure reception, not impact.

Process + Evidence Plates

- Fig 01 / Experience Design
Decision: Respect & Amplify the Content
Result: A design strategy in which the poetry, images, and stories speak for themselves without overwhelming the viewer.
- Fig 02 / Content Strategy
Decision: Photography's Role
Result: Amplify the sentiment of the poems without losing focus on the poetry itself.
- Fig 03 / Content Strategy
A DANCE piece — and it shows the writing is real reportage, not campaign copy: "Beenie Man in a white fedora is legs all legs as he steps like a king across the stage, head held back, fist to mouth, scatter-shot lyrics, gruff as any bedr[oom]…" 143 words, the densest text here. Naming Beenie Man places the work in actual Jamaican dancehall culture rather than a health-communication register.
A DANCE piece — and it shows the writing is real reportage, not campaign copy: "Beenie Man in a white fedora is legs all legs as he steps like a king across the stage, head held back, fist to mouth, scatter-shot lyrics, gruff as any bedr[oom]…" 143 words, the densest text here. Naming Beenie Man places the work in actual Jamaican dancehall culture rather than a health-communication register.
Decision: Voices of the People
Result: The production team returned to Jamaica to record the voices of individuals featured in Dawes’ poems, lending authenticity and depth to the narrative.
- Fig 04 / Interaction Design
The site's organising structure, and the poems are the IA. "HOPE: Living with HIV in Jamaica" over FEATURED POEMS and a poem list — Hope's Hospice · Coffee Break · Nichol · Live Up · Making Ends Meet · Unforgiveness · Portmore News · Fear · A Vani[ty]. Navigation by poem title, not by topic or date.
The site's organising structure, and the poems are the IA. "HOPE: Living with HIV in Jamaica" over FEATURED POEMS and a poem list — Hope's Hospice · Coffee Break · Nichol · Live Up · Making Ends Meet · Unforgiveness · Portmore News · Fear · A Vani[ty]. Navigation by poem title, not by topic or date.
Decision: Make the 22 poems the navigation, each with equal weight
Result: The source work stayed whole instead of being recategorized as journalism
- Fig 05 / Accessibility Standards & Best Practices
A poem page with its dedication, and the dedication is the project — FAITH: "for Nichol, Lorraine, Sherese, Lascelles, Glendon, Tricia, Renesha, Dave, Annesha and Paul", then the text: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of thin[gs not seen]" (Hebrews 11:1). Ten named people carried at the head of a poem — the participants are credited, not anonymised.
A poem page with its dedication, and the dedication is the project — FAITH: "for Nichol, Lorraine, Sherese, Lascelles, Glendon, Tricia, Renesha, Dave, Annesha and Paul", then the text: "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of thin[gs not seen]" (Hebrews 11:1). Ten named people carried at the head of a poem — the participants are credited, not anonymised.
Decision: Keep interviews intimate, with clear captions and controls
Result: Accessible, respectful, and easy to follow
- Fig 06 / Content Strategy
The design strategy for Live, Hope, Love revolved around humanizing the subjects of Kwame Dawes' poetry through photography and audio recordings captured during the team's visit to Jamaica.
The design strategy for Live, Hope, Love revolved around humanizing the subjects of Kwame Dawes' poetry through photography and audio recordings captured during the team's visit to Jamaica.
Decision: Group each person's words under the topics they chose to speak about
Result: Subjects set the terms of their own story
- Fig 07 / Design Systems
The POEM GALLERY — the index view, with titles partly legible (Ends of Fear · Faith · Sketch). The gallery that makes 22 poems browsable.
The POEM GALLERY — the index view, with titles partly legible (Ends of Fear · Faith · Sketch). The gallery that makes 22 poems browsable.
Decision: Present poems, photographs, video and music in one minimal frame
Result: The interface never competed with the work