Award for Web Design
Award Sponsor: Works Design
Winner: Richard Lau
Winning Project: Art of Visual Data
Award Sponsor: Works Design; School: York University, Toronto, ON; Educator Support: Bianca DiPietro RGD
The Art of Visual Data is a platform that translates complex datasets into visual stories, raising awareness of global issues and improving data literacy through design, storytelling and interactive tools. Articles make information more accessible to students, advocates and the general public with features that support learners of all levels. The featured article You Can’t See Me explores five SDGs—Child Labour, Child Health, Birth Registration, Socioeconomic Support and Education Completion—using pictograms, iconography, parallel coordinate plots, motion and tooltips to reduce cognitive load. Accessibility is enhanced through a chatbot, negative affordances, axis transitions and custom keyboard navigation.
The logo is a custom typeface that visualizes letter frequency with layered decay marks inspired by Futura and chart forms, while an orange brand palette conveys urgency. Articles appear as bar graphs and the hamburger menu animates into a chart. The DataSense tool gamifies learning through rankings, achievements and progress bars—encouraging reflection and long-term engagement.
Honourable Mentions
- Horizon Point Camp by Faith Innes Student RGD, York University, Toronto, ON
- Gramingo by Yomna Ismail Student RGD, Mercedes Turner Student RGD and Ira Ahmed Student RGD Conestoga College, Kitchener, ON
- Mashup Design Portfolio Website by Mahshid Mahmoudian, George Brown College, Toronto, ON
Judges
- Don Laurie, Associate Creative Director at Works Design, Hamilton, ON
- Chris Reyes RGD, Creative Director at Everyother, Edmonton, AB
- Josh Skinner RGD, Senior Staff Product Designer at Apartment List, Toronto, ON
