# Businessweek — five-year financial-crisis retrospective

**Year:** 2013
**Role:** Lead designer (research + design on a suite of pieces in the issue), contracted by creative director Richard Turley
**Client:** Bloomberg Businessweek
**Credits:** Editor Josh Tyrangiel · Creative Director Richard Turley · Design Director Cynthia Hoffman
**Tags:** stories-and-dataviz, editorial
**Case study:** /work/businessweek

A Bloomberg Businessweek special issue marking five years since the 2008 financial crisis. The issue retold the arc of the collapse and the recovery through a sequence of major data graphics threaded across the magazine. I led research and design on a suite of visual news stories inside it.

The issue went on to win a National Magazine Award for Single-Topic Issue.

![Collage of infographics from the issue](/work/businessweek/01-businessweek-cover.jpg)

## How the engagement worked

The brief was open — not a defined story list, but "come in and figure out which visual stories the retrospective should tell." Some pieces I proposed and developed end-to-end; on others, a writer was already developing an angle and I saw the graphic opportunity inside it. A few pieces I drove and contributed to don't appear here in detail — once an angle and approach were set, execution was handed off to other designers on the staff.

## Too Contagious to Fail

Counterparty-risk diagram of the dangerous connections between major financial institutions on the eve of the collapse. Concentrations of longer arrows indicate more exposure to counterparty risk. Solo.

![Photo of the 'Too Contagious to Fail' printed spread](/work/businessweek/02-businessweek-risk.jpg)

## Key index timelines

The issue was structured year-by-year, and each year opened with a stack of graphs showing key economic indexes — GDP, household income, and others — with more of each index revealed as the issue unfolded. Connective visual tissue across the whole magazine. Solo.

![Photo of the key-index timeline graphics](/work/businessweek/03-businessweek-timeline.jpg)

## World Leader Roulette

The purple heatmap shows drops in unemployment from 2007–2013, serving as the stage over which different world leaders come and go (marked by black dots). Eye-crops made for a more engaging set of headshots. With [Allison McCann](http://allisontmccann.com/) — I led concept and design; Allison led research and writing.

![Photo of the 'World Leader Roulette' graphic](/work/businessweek/04-businessweek-heads.jpg)

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