For the Visual Culture and Design course at Georgia Tech, the midterm assignment was to create an interactive timeline communicating some aspect of the history of nanotechnology. For this design, I looked to the masters we had discussed in class: Charles and Ray Eames, who had designed a timeline of the history of mathematics. The Eames’ presentation of the history of mathematics placed a narrow line one tenth of the way from the bottom of the poster, with color blocks eight tenths of the height of the poster representing 100 year periods, on which information was placed. I chose a very specific topic within the history of nanotechnology, tracing the growth of nanotechnology companies in Israel over a 30-year period. Similar to the Eames poster, I placed a narrow line toward the bottom of the image, and to make it interactive, placed buttons to represent the years companies were founded. By clicking a button, a user can view information on the company that was founded that year as well as a bar chart showing how much all the existing nanotechnology companies had grown that year. This information is presented in two boxes that appear to be in the foreground. A company logo is shown in the left box and a brief description is shown in the right box. This timeline was created with Illustrator and Flash. To view the timeline, please click this link: Nanotechnology Timeline.

Click to view interactive timeline