A WHALE OF A JOURNEY

Mapping website, HTLM, CSS, and Javascript

LOCATION: Muncie, IN

ROLE: Designer, Illustrator, Coder

LIVE SITE: A Whale of a Journey

OVERVIEW

The Gray Whale has the longest migration of any other mammal on our Earth. Their trip is an amazing 12,000 miles stretching from the edge of Mexico to the Arctic. In the fall (October to February), Gray Whales travel south to warmer waters to give birth to young. In the spring (January to June), they travel north when the ice has melted to feeding grounds. Much of the trip is made within 2.5 miles of the North American shoreline, making the migration one of the few that humans can observe from the land.

SOLUTION

A Whale of a Journey is a horizontal scrolling website that engages the user by putting a numerical distance of migration miles into perspective with a comparison to other commonly understood distances. This map gives a visual representation of how far gray whales travel from their mating and birthing grounds to where they feed. The site utilizes calculated pixel measurements to accurately show the distance traveled in miles on a downsized scale. When scrolling, the ‘whale’ on the page is relatively fixed to the window, giving the impression that the viewer is swimming alongside the whale. The whale moves through a patch of motion graphic garbage that visually represents the Great Pacific Garbage Patch. The other two pages contain supplementary information about the geographic movement of gray whale migration and the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.

 Process