Google Cloud &
The New York TimesOverview:As part of a partnership between Google Cloud and The New York Times, we helped tell the story of an archive almost too large to imagine: eight million photographs, stored for decades beneath the Times building in a basement space known as The Morgue.

For nearly a century, these images lived three floors below street level. Finding one meant knowing what to ask for, and waiting while someone searched by hand. Many of the photographs had not been seen in years, except by the people who cared for the archive.

With Google Cloud, the Times began turning this vast physical collection into a searchable digital resource, using visual information and associated data to make the archive easier for journalists to explore. Our role was to create a campaign experience that made that transformation feel tangible. Less about technology for technology’s sake, and more about the quiet thrill of discovery: the moment a forgotten image finds its way back into the light.



Role: 
Creative Director
Client: 
Instrument
 Year: 2018

Agency:
Instrument





Inspired ourselves by a very small selection of the historic photographs, we dove into the incredible web of history, writing stories based on small details found in the images. Since Google Cloud technologies, from secure storage to Cloud Vision API, will be able to aid in discovering information and sparking insights, we brought the photos to new life with this newly contextualized data in deep-dive interactive stories.
We created an immersive desktop and mobile AR experience inviting users to picture how tools like Vision API and ML are helping to uncover patterns and hidden connections within these photos. Each photo takes the user on a captivating deep dive into a series of untold stories; uncovering new meanings, and even new truths.





FIN

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