Blood: The Stuff of LIfe
Interactive design and development
Project Overview
Summary
"Blood: The Stuff of LIfe" was created for the public lecture series The Massey Lectures which were broadcast on the CBC Radio 1 show Ideas. Based on Lawrence Hill's book of the same title, CBC's Ideas brought the five part radio series to life as an interactive project. With a very tight deadline of two weeks, the site was built with a desktop and mobile device version to maximize device compatibility and flexibility in the interactive design.
Awards: Honourable mention “The Webby Awards”
Client
CBC Radio Ideas for "The Massey Lectures"Responsibilities
- Web Development
- Interactive design
- Development lead
Status
Offline
The Design and Build
The interactive was conceived as a scroll-driven animated experience designed to keep readers engaged while exploring the themes of Blood: The Stuff of Life, Blood: The Stuff of Life by Lawrence Hill, originally delivered as part of the Massey Lectures and broadcast on Ideas.
I led a team of developers in building a visually rich, five-chapter interactive that combined video backgrounds, animated typography, and contextual sidebars to help illustrate Hill’s exploration of the cultural, historical, and personal meanings of blood.
Working from Photoshop designs and an early draft of the script, I mapped out how the narrative and media elements such as photo galleries, archival audio clips, and looping video that would unfold as users scrolled through the piece. My background in video editing informed many of the pacing and transition decisions, helping the story flow seamlessly between sections.
Because the experience relied heavily on scroll interactions, I also led the development of a dedicated mobile version. The team implemented device detection and adapted the interaction model to support touch-based navigation while maintaining the integrity of the animations and storytelling.
Despite a tight two-week production timeline, the team delivered a polished interactive that blended motion, audio, and text to bring the lectures to life in a digital format.
Blood: The Stuff of Life charted in the top 10 of CBC's digital pages for the following week and won an honourable mention at the Webby Awards.
