Long Lead & Decimal Studios

Lifting Ukraine

Websites and Mobile Sites: Best Use of Photography / Webby Winner & People's Voice Winner

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The Challenge

The challenge was taking a visual-forward essay about one woman’s plight — saving displaced animals with the backdrop of the Ukraine war — and giving it a multimedia platform that brings her story to life.

The Solution

Along with our design partners Decimal Studios, we developed a bespoke Wordpress site that accommodated all of the unique challenges of this production. It was critical to have the context of war juxtaposed with the photos and videos of the subject’s day-to-day efforts, in an engaging and easy-to-follow user experience.

The Results

Lifting Ukraine’s design is a revolution in digital photo essay experiences. The user is guided through the history of Anna Kurkurina’s life as a champion bodybuilder, an animal-rescuer, and a social media mogul through a compelling series of photos, video, audio, and complex layering. The result is a gorgeous new standard for experiencing photojournalism essays — on both mobile and desktop browsers — that swept the Best Use of Photography category at the 2024 Webby Awards for both jury and people’s choice.

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