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Episode #105: Kenton Powell
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Kenton Powell is the Head of Design and Graphics at Vice News, a somewhat new venture from Vice and now showing on HBO. Prior to Vice, Kenton was a designer at Bloomberg Business Week and then an interactive editor for...
The post Episode #105: Kenton Powell appeared first on PolicyViz.
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Transcript
Introduction to Episode Topic
00:00:11
Speaker
Welcome back to the Policy Viz Podcast. I'm your host, John Schwabisch. On this week's episode, we turn to data design and data visualization on TV. That's right, a television, a thing you actually sit down in your house and watch. Maybe not on your phone, not on your computer, an actual television.
00:00:28
Speaker
There is data design and data is going on on the TV.
Kenton Powell's Background in Data Visualization
00:00:32
Speaker
I'm very happy to have Kenton Powell with me, who is the Head of Design and Graphics at Vice News to talk to us about the exciting stuff that they're doing on Vice News. Kenton, welcome to the show. Thanks for having me, John. Great to be here.
00:00:44
Speaker
I'm really excited to have you on the show because you have a fairly varied background working with data in multiple dimensions and platforms. I want to try to get into all of that and get your perspective on how you communicate these things to different audiences and what your experience has been like doing this on television. So can you start by telling us about your background and the sort of things that you're doing over there
Design Challenges at Vice News
00:01:08
Speaker
advice?
00:01:08
Speaker
Definitely. So you sort of mentioned my varied background. I think coming to Vice has been really interesting for me because like you mentioned, I sort of have not always worked in TV. I started my career at Bloomberg Businessweek on the graphics team, so making graphics for a magazine every week.
00:01:28
Speaker
I was there for a little bit and then I worked on a different team at Bloomberg working on sort of like consumer facing data visualization products. And so these were like a couple of month projects that were relatively big and they were sort of these like interactive applications. So one of them was like a Bloomberg billionaires project. After that I worked at the Guardian US interactive team here in New York on
00:01:59
Speaker
again, interactive projects that sort of arranged in scope and scale for a couple of years and had a really great experience there, and was approached to come work on this new show, a nightly news TV show on HBO. Josh Tieringell, who runs Vice News here, and I had worked together at Bloomberg Businessweek. We had gotten along and sort of shared sensibilities, and I think he
00:02:28
Speaker
had a vision for this show that would incorporate essentially a lot of the great thinking in these different mediums. And that sounded really interesting to
Unhosted Show Dynamics
00:02:38
Speaker
me. And he was sort of agreeable to me joining the team despite having no experience in TV. Yeah, that's how we kind of ended up here at Vice News. That's awesome.
00:02:51
Speaker
For folks who haven't seen it, who don't have subscriptions to HBO or like me, get the free HBO every couple of months from my cable provider. Can you talk a little bit about what the show is and from your perspective, what are the visual elements of the show? Definitely. So I think the design of the show is a bit more important than the design of other new shows because the show is unhosted. So it's like a 30 minute unhosted
00:03:21
Speaker
nightly news show. The hosts of a nightly news show typically lead you into pieces, lead you out of pieces, give you a little bit of context, and kind of stitch together the show with sort of tone and personality. And so we knew that we wouldn't have that in any one given person.
00:03:38
Speaker
we would have people report pieces, but they would be sort of responsible for that piece, not for the whole show.
Content Creation and Visual Storytelling
00:03:46
Speaker
And so the design essentially needed to really be the sort of design and visual language of the show needed to be the glue that could hold all of these pieces together and have you sort of sit down and watch a show and feel like, okay, I just watched, I watched a cohesive television show. I didn't watch like a playlist of clips. Yeah, right.
00:03:48
Speaker
So
00:04:06
Speaker
So I think this was a really interesting challenge for us, and we kind of settled on this idea of...
00:04:13
Speaker
sort of a stream is what we kind of call it a stream of video and so I think what that is in practice is like a white canvas and so it's a big white space where video kind of comes in from the left pops into place and kind of maybe pops back and moves out to the left so its content kind of comes in frame and then leaves frame and I think it's sort of
00:04:39
Speaker
slightly in nature it's inspired by a kind of interaction design you can sort of imagine it's tv so you don't actually interact with it but you sort of imagine like this is what it would be like if your thumb kind of moved in video before kind of like pushing it back out the other side of the screen.
00:04:57
Speaker
So this design language is really important, and it gives us this flexibility. Yeah, basically, if you watch the show, you'll see this white space that you kind of come to realize as the host or sort of the canvas of the show, and then you'll see kind of video. And I think it ends up giving you, if you watch the show with some regularity, I think it gives the show a real distinctive look, but I think it's rooted in this kind of functionality.
00:05:25
Speaker
Right. Who's driving the content? Are there individual reporters who are driving the content? Is there like an editor in chief who's pulling stitching everything together?
Collaborative Story Shaping
00:05:34
Speaker
Yes, there are two sort of EPs on the show executive producers of the show and they're working closely with we have pods here. They're working closely with pods who are essentially like desks at other news organizations.
00:05:49
Speaker
that are surfacing stories. They're kind of green lighting these stories and these stories are being sort of shot and then kind of put together on a rundown and discussed throughout the day. And so the timelines vary depending on the newsiness of a particular story. But basically these executive producers in these various meetings with these sort of desks or pods are green lighting stories and then
00:06:15
Speaker
essentially deciding when and if they should go on TV. Yeah, interesting. You mentioned in your description that the reporters or the journalists are reporting on the story. How does the production work in terms of the reporters, the journalists doing their interviews, pulling the story together, and then working with your team to actually create the content? I remember my father-in-law worked for
00:06:41
Speaker
ABC News Radio for almost 40 years and towards the end of his career, he would do the reporting, he would record everything on his computer, he would stitch the whole story
Data Visualization Challenges for TV
00:06:50
Speaker
together. You know, the beginning of his career, he would do the interview and send the raw tapes into the studio and they would pull it together. But at the end of his career, you know, he was having to do all the work on his own. So what's the production process like for the journalists and then your team and then getting it on air?
00:07:06
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, they have a pretty difficult job. I think everybody here really does. And that I think the expectation is that everybody does a lot. So I think the journalists are there are some producers who are not on camera, but there are a lot of the sort of the people that you see on screen are reporters and journalists that are helping to to shape and craft these stories in their own right. And so they're kind of working together.
00:07:35
Speaker
to shape these pieces and put them together. And then when they come back from the field, they're going to sit with an editor while these pieces are edited. And then we can work with them on pieces and sort of determine what sorts of graphics we need to include in the pieces to add context, to explain particularly complex processes.
00:07:56
Speaker
all of that. And so basically those are conversations that start via email and then kind of we go back and forth and so our team works in a really fluid way with those desks. I think the one thing that I would note here is that probably only half of our work or so is
00:08:15
Speaker
work that we collaborate with other people like on their stories and so we would call those like graphics that might go in other people's packages. We do create a lot of sort of original work that comes from our team and that comes together a little bit differently. Those are pitched from within our team or pitched to our team and what we'll do in those cases is we'll really start with a script and
00:08:45
Speaker
At that point, we'll kind of assess a script and figure out what is an approach that makes sense for us to tell this story. So it could be motion graphics that could be really data rich. So it could be kind of a sequence of charts and graphs. It could be something that really needs some character development. And so maybe, you know, maybe it requires illustration or animation.
00:09:10
Speaker
It really kind of runs the gamut. So our team has, I think, intense flexibility because we do use graphics. We do have an editor on our team. We also have illustrators. And so I think the output of the work we do is far more varied. And I think that we have flexibility and ways into stories that might otherwise be tricky.
Narrative in TV Graphics
00:09:32
Speaker
And so I think we've become sort of a unique asset to the show in that way.
00:09:37
Speaker
One of the things that, again, my boss sort of said when we first got started is that a lot of TV news will choose to ignore stories where there is not video. Essentially, if there's nothing to show on TV, then there's not a story as they see it.
00:10:00
Speaker
What we are able to do is we are allowed to say like, okay, this is a story that really is. Only about numbers and there's like, there's quite literally no video. And so with those numbers, we can create again, charts and graphs and move them in sequence and have something that you can see on screen. So we can turn these sort of seemingly non-visual stories into visual stories. Well, that's really interesting.
00:10:25
Speaker
There may not be an actual interview with a person, but you can use data or you can use illustrations to visualize the content itself. That is really interesting. In a way that I didn't even quite really realize that like other mediums don't have, I mean, they have other kinds of challenges that they face, but like, you know, if you don't get the quote you need, you can typically kind of write around that. Yeah.
00:10:50
Speaker
I was surprised. It was basically like, if we don't have video, we don't have a story because this is so rigidly a video first medium. Right. But but on the flip side, you also have this challenge of presenting graphics and data, at least the thing that I'm thinking about, obviously, to an audience where it is flashing by. Whereas in your previous work, you know, Bloomberg and a Guardian,
00:11:16
Speaker
you're sometimes at least creating content where the goal is for someone to interact with it. So how do you think differently about creating content for people where it's sort of a more passive receipt of the information, as opposed to something that's a little more active where I can sit down and I can click with something? Yeah, so I think there are really kind of two sort of approaches
00:11:38
Speaker
that I think that we sort of settle on that are really sort of helpful. One is managing density. And I think that, yeah, you're absolutely right in print, you can make a really simple graphic, and people will just kind of glance at your simple graphic and sort of be done with it. Or you can make like a really complex graphic and people can really sit and study it. And so one of the things that we sort of had to figure out was
00:12:02
Speaker
on TV, you can't just put up a simple graphic or put up a complex graphic that really
00:12:10
Speaker
I think people understand and process graphics as a function of time. One kind of graphic could take up the same exact amount of space, but if it is particularly simple, it will only take, let's say, three seconds to fully internalize, whereas these more sophisticated ones take much longer to internalize. Maybe they take 30 seconds or a minute.
00:12:34
Speaker
And so what we sort of figured out is that, okay, so what you need to do is that's the amount of time
Designing Visuals with a Script
00:12:40
Speaker
that you need to have something on screen. So if something can be sort of processed really quickly, then it only needs to be on screen really quickly. If something's going to take much longer to sort of process and internalize, then what you need to kind of do is find a way to stretch that graphic to sit on screen for that long.
00:12:59
Speaker
However, you can't just put something on screen statically for a minute because people don't sort of interact with the medium in that way. So we figured out that you kind of have to reveal additional information or slide over a graphic in time or layer on information or layer on and remove information. And that kind of leads me to the next sort of approach, which is I think sometimes in print, but particularly in interactive graphics, there's this idea
00:13:28
Speaker
that there doesn't necessarily need to be like a really strong narrative associated with the graphic. Whereas in TV, all of our pieces start with a script. So it's very like, what are we going to show you? And then what are we going to show you? And then what are we going to be telling you while we're showing you that? And these kinds of, there's like a dance between
00:13:52
Speaker
what you're seeing and what you're hearing. And so I think what you're hearing is usually, you know, VO or soundbite. And so we need to sort of make sure that that nicely complements what you're seeing and kind of moves things along. I wonder whether you think people who are creating either static charts or interactive charts for print or for digital or whatever, I wonder, do you think that they should have a script in mind? Because I often feel like people make graphs and they're like, here you go.
00:14:21
Speaker
here's the line chart, you know, good luck. Whereas if they did sort of have a script in their head, at least they might take a different approach to putting the title on that graph or adding the color to that graph. So I know TV sort of like a completely different medium, perhaps than what a lot of people are working in. But I wonder if that philosophy of thinking about a script, even if it's a single chart, it would be helpful to people as they create data or communicating their data. Definitely. I absolutely think that and I actually think that
00:14:50
Speaker
We have started to see that I would say over the last few years. I'm a huge fan of the New York Times and I feel like many more of the graphics that we see the graphics team create are like
00:15:03
Speaker
It's an article with a graphic that specifically relates to what you just learned in the article or what you should be looking at. And then the article continues a little bit. And then there's another graphic. Instead of graphics being supplementary, they're sort of integral and their placement is very precise and particular. I definitely think people should be doing it. And I do think
Aligning Visual and Narrative Elements
00:15:27
Speaker
that people are doing it.
00:15:29
Speaker
For people who are not at the times, the folks that I tend to work with and talk to, content sort of comes first, right? The getting the data, doing the analysis comes first, and the visuals of the communication sort of second order. What would you say to them? Like, how would you say, here's how you should think about designing a script for your five-page report that has three graphs in it? Here's how you should think about creating this script? That's an interesting question. I think that
00:15:56
Speaker
I know I'm taking you out of your comfort zone, I know, but, you know, I think it's it's easy for us to talk about what the Times and the Post and the Guardian do. And I'm wondering for, you know, the other 99 percent of 99.9 percent of people who are making graphs every day to get them to think a little bit more the way you're talking.
00:16:15
Speaker
I mean, I guess I would just think about it. However you structure your piece, I assume has multiple points. You know, like I always think back to like what the most kind of rudimentary construction is like the five paragraph essay. Do you remember? Did you learn the five paragraph essay?
00:16:32
Speaker
I did. Yeah. Basically, your introduction, your three points, and then three point inclusion. So I sort of feel like the most rudimentary approach, you basically would say, okay, point one, and then you, you know, you would make your point and you would say, and this is the evidence in the form of a graphic with this data that I have collected that supports point one, and then kind of point two, and then this is
00:16:57
Speaker
you know, the evidence that I've collected that supports point two, and this is the visualization of that point, and then, you know, point three, similarly, and then, you know, if I don't know, maybe there's something at the end that kind of ties it all together. I think it's a pretty straightforward approach. Yeah, like, I don't know that it Yeah, it's, it's not about rocket science, I think that what
00:17:17
Speaker
where things can go wrong is if you go, okay, I've got, you know, I've got my three points, and then you go, oh, and I have some kind of tangential data, but I could make a chart and just include that. Like, that's where you're not winning. I don't think, you know, by including sort of the ancillary data or just a supplemental thing at the end that you feel free to take a look at if you're so interested, or even, you know, something at the top because it's going to make for beautiful lead art, but it's really not related to the points that I'm going to make.
00:17:47
Speaker
Yeah. And what's interesting is you can't do that, right? Like you can't have these tangential points, because you have a limited amount of time and a limited amount of your audience's attention. Correct. And not only that, but we actually, one thing that we learned early on was I was like, Oh, you know, let's not be too concerned with, with echoing the exact, you know, the exact point that we're making in the sort of the narration or the voiceover and
00:18:15
Speaker
I quickly learned that actually there couldn't be too much dissonance or else it would genuinely be like a bit of a mind bender because you'd be hearing one thing and seeing another. So not only can we not because of time restraints on the show, but like we also can't because it's actually, it's pretty confusing if you try to watch the show and you do that.
Audience Feedback Mechanisms
00:18:34
Speaker
Right. Right. Where you're showing a graph or whatever that has a couple of data points, but you, the narration is sort of moved on or,
00:18:41
Speaker
Yeah, or is only loosely related. Right, right. It's like, it's, I was surprised at how closely related the ideas really do need to be. They can be a little bit different. Like we like to add context on screens. We think we can give you like a little bit more, but it has to be a little bit more of exactly what we're talking about. Yeah. Do you do a lot of user testing or audience testing with, with the show?
00:19:05
Speaker
You know, we really don't. It's tricky because the analytics online have gotten so wild that you can really figure out what people are doing. You have kind of some crude measurements based on size of audience. And then you have sort of more anecdotal evidence based on what people are saying on social networks. But we mostly are sort of guided by essentially all the people that we work with.
00:19:34
Speaker
Does this make sense? Do you get this? Are you overwhelmed? Are you underwhelmed? Are you confused? That's primarily how we're getting feedback. Yeah, I mean, I think that's the way most people are doing it. That seems to be universal across all platforms, then.
Platform Considerations for Visuals
00:19:54
Speaker
I want to ask you one more question. So here in the US, the show is, at least I watch it on HBO, but HBO could also be on TV, but it could also be on HBO Go.
00:20:05
Speaker
I think if I'm right, in other countries, you can get Vice News on different platforms. So when you're designing, are you also thinking about specifically mobile, like how people are going to be interacting and watching the show on their phones on their way to work? Yeah. I mean, we are to an extent. I think one of the things we definitely knew when we were coming up with the type sizes was
00:20:32
Speaker
that we needed essentially type sizes that would work on phones. And so I think those are kind of the primary sorts of concerns. And then we have certain areas that we sort of know, there may be a logo there, so we won't put anything too important there. And then actually in TV, there's already some kind of some safeties built in that you talk about. Yeah, sure. I keep text out of it.
00:21:01
Speaker
But yeah, I mean, it is pretty wild to think that when we were we sort of approached the show, we sort of like knew like, absolutely on day one, there will be people that only consume that's on mobile devices. Right, right.
Video's Storytelling Advantages
00:21:14
Speaker
Let me end with this question. Do you think that at least in data visualization and within that field of people communicating data, I should say, do you think that video is under utilized?
00:21:25
Speaker
Yeah, I think video is a relatively new space. I think there is some interesting work happening. I think there are some real strengths to video, especially as they relate to people, character development, I think really like scene setting and mood and like you're really in a place. I don't know that there's been as much exploration and I think this is something we're working on of kind of
00:21:50
Speaker
playing to the strengths of the format that kind of like take advantage of all of the things that I just mentioned and sort of marrying that with data and annotation in sort of interesting and innovative ways.
00:22:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's really interesting. What video I think allows you to do in some ways is like you said, is be able to tell those stories get actual people involved, where static graphs are interactive, you in some ways force people to, in many cases, at least just work with the data. Whereas video, the viewer might be able to relate to what they see on screen in a different, more personal way. Yeah, definitely. And I mean, I think just sort of on that note, I think one of the kind of the things that I saw when I first
00:22:32
Speaker
came to Vice, having worked at other news organizations is that I've seen a lot of really powerful journalism, but I think Vice News in a lot of ways is like a very documentary style news organization. And so thinking about that and looking at that and feeling like you're immersed in a different place or you're really getting to know a character
Conclusion and Call to Action
00:22:58
Speaker
For me, I felt like these really powerful storytelling techniques were at play and it was like, ah, we need to sort of lean into this and find a way to have the work that we do complement that work because in print and online, if it doesn't have video, it's, you know, the best you get is really great photography. And there is just something that is really different from really great video and really great photography.
00:23:24
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Well, it's really interesting. I've been enjoying the show since we talked a few months ago. I've been sort of tuning in and watching it. It's really interesting work. And Ken, thanks for coming on the show and talking about it. And I look forward to seeing what you guys come up with next. Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Great chat.
00:23:43
Speaker
Yeah. Um, and thanks to everyone for tuning into this week's episode. I hope you enjoyed it. Let me know if you have thoughts on how to incorporate data and data is into video something I'm very curious about. So until next time, this has been the policy of his podcast. Thanks so much for listening.