Post infographic on Hong Kong social unrest wins gold in Europe
- The infographic ‘100 days of protests’ receives the highest honour at the 50th edition of the Spanish ADG Laus awards for graphic design and visual communication
The South China Morning Post has won gold at a leading design competition in Europe for a sweeping visual overview of the political unrest that erupted in Hong Kong last year.
The jury recognised the work by Pablo Robles, Dennis Wong and Darren Long as the leading entry in the infographics field, adding to the multiple honours the project has already received.
In conceiving the idea, the team set an ambitious goal of presenting the Post’s comprehensive reporting on the social unrest in a new, visually captivating way. The resulting multimedia project combines text, photographs and video, among other elements, into a timeline showing how both police and protesters escalated the use of violence over months and constantly shifting battle lines.
The piece was published on September 17, 2019, and became a key reference point for readers seeking a clear path through a deeply complex saga.
Senior designer Pablo Robles, who led the project, explains the team’s approach.
“We took the 1 million-strong demonstration on June 9 as the starting point and examined video footage, SCMP’s live blog and photographic records before filtering the data manually,” Robles said.
“We divided the type of violence and weapons both sides used into categories and created a meter to indicate the level of violence to show their ebb and flow”.
Creative director Darren Long said the biggest challenge of the project was trying to keep on top of events.
“We were constantly playing catch up with the news as the protests evolved with new strategies, new developments and new revelations on a daily, if not hourly basis,” Long said.
The infographic took top prizes at WAN IFRA’s Asia Media Awards and the Malofiej International Infographic Awards, as well as recognition as an honoree at the Webby Awards for best individual editorial feature by a media company.
Post Editor-in-Chief Tammy Tam welcomed the accolade from ADG Laus.
“We are delighted that our infographics team continues to earn international recognition for its pursuit of excellence and playing such an important role using visual journalism to tell stories that inform and educate in engaging ways.”
