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Abstract

HLN | Spectrum 2011 is a proposed “year-in-review” editorial campaign for HLN. It is an interactive, online tool that organizes news stories from 2011 but with an interesting twist. Each story is categorized based on the emotional responses linked to certain colors as outlined by a study done on color psychology at the University of Indiana. This is intended to captivate the audience in a different way, since almost every other website relies on a search bar as its primary means of navigation. The users of HLN | Spectrum use a color bar at the bottom of the page to explore the stories and find out which psychological color of news they enjoy the most. For example, the University of Indiana study lists red as a color associated with danger and violence. Therefore, under the “red” category of HLN | Spectrum, the top trending story of Casey Anthony’s alleged murder of her daughter appears. Under the “blue” category, which loosely represents business or politics, the top trending story of the Tea Party appears. A link to the study is located at the bottom of the application as well, in the event that any user would like to learn more about how the categories were derived. A secondary component is the Spectrum Mosaic. This adds one more personal touch to the browsing experience, as users are able to upload their own photo to a large mosaic of other users’ images, with their favorite color of news laid over the photo. The mosaic will place the photo in the corresponding color section and thus becomes another research experiment to see which color of news is most popular amongst the public. The entire campaign exists across multiple platforms

  • Flash Website: 960 x 600px
  • Movie: 1920 x 1080px
  • Presentation: 1920 x 1080px
  • Social Networking sites: variable
  • Creative Brief: 9” x 11.5”

DOI

https://doi.org/10.31922/disc1.17

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