Mapping Missing Migrants
Documenting migrants who have lost their lives while seeking refuge.
Tools used
Mapbox, R
Published
October 2019
Audience
The world!
What it is
Mapping Missing Migrants is a visual storytelling piece focused on migrants and refugees who have lost their lives while traveling to another country. It was awarded the Student Bronze in the 28th Malofiej Awards.
Tools used
This project was an example of a low-code but high-impact story. Rather than reinventing the wheel and implementing my own scrollytelling capabilities, I used two tools from Mapbox: their interactive storytelling template and Mapbox Studio. In combination, I was able to write very little code but provide a highly tailored, powerful user experience for the reader.
I used Mapbox Studio to create each of the bubbles that is present on the map. As a corollary, I used Studio to define the size, fill, and location of each bubble. I created many different layers that toggled visibility on scroll.
To trigger scroll events, I used the Mapbox storytelling template. This was a simple JSON where, for each 'view', I defined three elements: the text, the layer, and the location.