Super PACs. Drones. Gerrymandering. Dark Money. How do you quickly illustrate these concepts in a way that is meaningful and impactful to an audience of different education levels and cultural backgrounds? That was the challenge set out before a group of 60 volunteers at an Iconathon The Noun Project hosted at The New York Times last February.
<p> Journalists, editors, graphic designers, web developers and engaged citizens brainstormed and sketched ideas for icons frequently needed throughout news editorials and applications. The goal of creating these symbols is to help guide readers through the in-depth stories investigative journalists help uncover, to provide a graphical shorthand that helps navigate readers through complicated concepts, as well as to help illustrate infographics that help people better understand important facts and correlations.<br/><br/> "A new set of icons for news will help graphics editors and news application developers use graphical shorthand in place of lengthy explanation—the proverbial thousand words—and to tell meaningful and impactful stories more gracefully and graphically," said Scott Klein, Editor of News Applications at <a href="http://www.propublica.org/" target="_blank">ProPublica</a>. <br/><br/></p><div id="upworthyFreeStarVideoAdContainer"><div id="freestar-video-parent"><div id="freestar-video-child"></div></div></div><p> The final set of <a href="http://thenounproject.com/Iconathon1/#" target="_blank">22 Investigative Journalism</a> symbols have been released by The Noun Project as public domain for anyone to use. The Iconathon was sponsored by <a href="http://mozillaopennews.org/" target="_blank">Knight-Mozilla OpenNews</a> and <em>The New York Times</em>, with collaboration from ProPublica and <a href="http://meetupnyc.hackshackers.com/" target="_blank">Hacks/Hackers NYC</a>.</p><p> The investigative journalism symbols:</p><p class="shortcode-media shortcode-media-rebelmouse-image">
<img class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="08a0cc21a0efd4b35194c03947f8c4ae" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" id="92d92" type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8xOTg4OTcxMS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY2MzE5NzA0N30.a-lKN3lUsic6V6_1aMTtl9H54_mQb348dsS_6S6flUY/img.jpg?width=980"/>
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</p><p> <em>Images courtesy of <a href="http://thenounproject.com/" target="_blank">The Noun Project</a></em><br/> <br/></p>
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