www.redcross.org/911legacy
FLAT
Sometimes it’s hard to tell your own story. When New York design firm Flat started working with the American Red Cross, the humanitarian agency’s 9/11 workers were emotionally drained. “They knew they didn’t have the objective distance to make sense of what they’d done for five years,” says Doug Lloyd, a partner at Flat. “They’d been dealing with people whose family members had died. That was their life for five years—holding mock funerals for people whose family members couldn’t be found.” Still, the Red Cross wanted to create a record of the five years following 9/11, including a detailed account of how it spent a billion dollars.

Originally, the Red Cross approached Flat with a timeline detailing key events, but the firm came back and said, “This doesn’t do justice to what you did.” So the design team spent roughly two months digging through the organization’s archives of records, books and actual objects—the latter ranging from a Hazmat suit to children’s drawings. This extended research expedition helped them develop the story, the most critical parts of which are reflected in the site’s navigation: an Introduction, Who We Helped, The Team, Services Provided and Liberty Fund. These also happen to be the topics people most want to know about.

Within each section, the site perfectly balances the emotional story with the factual one. Flat created information graphics to bring all the numbers and statistics surrounding this relief effort to life. Rather than list the fact that there were roughly 40,000 volunteers, for instance, they created a map showing where all these people were from. “A map engenders the meaning of the numbers for the readers,” Lloyd says. In addition, an interactive timeline appears on every page of the site to provide context to all the other content. Since this quantitative information—even when presented well—can be sober and dry, the site balances these graphics with compelling video interviews featuring everyone from victims’ families to politicians. All of these elements are packaged in a clean, understated site design that puts the content first.

Perhaps the project’s biggest accomplishment lies in striking the right tone. With all the controversy over how donations were spent, this site avoids being political or defensive. “We wanted to give a very sober, journalistic reporting of what the Red Cross did,” Lloyd says. The resulting site provides all the relevant facts about the organization’s efforts without drowning users in the numbers. As Lloyd says, “It’s about defining history.”
Michelle Taute