When presented with data that represents millions of lives, how do you make the numbers relatable on an individual level? This was the challenge for Pentagram’s Giorgia Lupi and team when they were asked to help visualize the Gates Foundation’s global progress in saving lives. As part of their research, they found that a range of collaborations and key health interventions resulted in a dramatic reduction in annual global childhood deaths since 2000. After working with Gates to identify major milestones in their work, the designers crafted and built an interactive narrative that illustrates the effect of these interventions on one woman’s life. Her story captures a singular data point among the millions of lives saved, bringing the story to a human scale. This story and digital campaign — titled A Patchwork of Progress — became the marquee website experience for the Gates Foundation’s 25th anniversary. 

Having recently launched the Gates Foundation rebrand, Team Lupi was well-equipped to translate the foundation’s identity and mission into the anniversary campaign. The program celebrates the foundation’s recent commitment to accelerate and reorient its mission in the next two decades. As the organization looks to continue inspiring its partners and audiences to take action, Giorgia and the team decided to focus the campaign on the cumulative impact of Gates’ global health ecosystem across generations. The introduction to A Patchwork of Progress tells Malaika’s* story, where her thumbprint grows as it is stitched. Each color characterizes a different long-term health and nutrition intervention. These enable Malaika and her baby, Amari, to grow up happy and well-nourished, protected from deadly infectious diseases.

We follow the thread of Malaika’s life to an interactive timeline that illustrates key milestones in the foundation’s efforts since 2000. High-impact innovations, collaborations, commitments, campaigns, and policy changes are represented as color-coded knots on the tapestry of the foundation’s work. Visitors can read additional stories and explore the Gates Foundation’s work across different partnerships and health areas. 

The visual system for this experience is rooted in embroidery and textile traditions—universal mediums that have been used to tell stories and document cultural narratives across civilizations. The stitches also represent the real, human effort behind the progress. The tapestry brings to life a metaphor for the foundation’s woven system of collaboration and partnership.

Having developed the project from story concept to finished microsite to social assets, Giorgia and her team were able to visually weave together the deeply personal and globally resonant stories that make Gates’ work so important. Whether a visitor is interested in reading every milestone and story or quickly scrolling through the experience, the complexity and interconnectedness of the work are made clear. Organizations like the Gates Foundation, with access to vast amounts of information, can use data storytelling to make their data more accessible and ultimately, more human.

A Patchwork of Progress is accessible at www.gatesfoundation.org/maternal-child-health-data/

*Malaika’s story is fictional for demonstration purposes.