Matt is visual journalist based in Detroit, reporting on stories that struggle to be told with prose alone.
To advance the craft of visual storytelling, he founded two organizations...
Polygraph
Data Visualization Studio (Est. 2015)
Clients
Kickstarter
YouTube
Converse
Sony Music
Universal Music Group
IBM
The Atlantic
Google News
Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery
The Boston Globe
Climate Impact Lab
Netflix
Strava
Salesforce
Emerson Collective
Harvard Kennedy School
Planned Parenthood
Aspen Institute
The Pudding
Digital Journal for Visual Essays (Est. 2017)
Awards
SND Gold Medal, 2024
SND Best in Show, 2024
Online Journalism Awards, General Excellence in Online Journalism, 2023
SND, World’s Best Designed Finalist, 2023
SND Silver Medal, 2020
Online Journalism Awards, General Excellence in Online Journalism, 2019
Data journalism website of the year, Data Journalism Awards, 2019
SND Gold Medal, 2018
Peabody, Digital Journalism, 2017
Individual Awards
Emmy Nomination, Analysis of protests in Minneapolis with the Washington Post
World Press Photo’s Interactive of the Year, Analysis of protests in Minneapolis with the Washington Post
Product Hunt’s Best of 2020 Award, How Bad is Your Spotify?
Emmy nomination, We measured pop music’s falsetto obsession
Breakthroughs in Storytelling Award, Columbia University School of the Arts’ Digital Storytelling Lab, Structure of Stand-Up Comedy
Information is Beautiful Awards, Silver, How music taste evolved
Information is Beautiful Awards, Bronze, The Largest Ever Analysis of Film Dialogue by Gender
Projects
Authored
Examining 30 years of Rolling Stone’s “Greatest Albums of All Time” Rankings
Analyzing Spotify’s Database of 6,000 Genres
YouTube’s End of Year Recap with YouTube
Behind the Lists: 2022’s Breakout Creators with YouTube
For the Love of Sneakers with YouTube
Speedruns Video with YouTube
Billion Views Club with YouTube
Weather Records from Yesterday
We tracked what happens after TikTok songs go viral with Vox
We couldn’t get an artificial intelligence program to win the New Yorker Caption Contest
The Rise of Aesthetics with YouTube
Get out of your Geographic Music Bubble
Reconstructing a timeline of protests using live-streams with The Washington Post
15 Percent Pledge x Whole Foods with 15 Percent Pledge
Flooding in America with Gannett
Identifying Generational Gaps in Music
The Worst, Highest-paid NBA Player
The Kim Foxx Effect with The Marshall Project
Are Men Singing Higher in Pop Music?
We measured pop music’s falsetto obsession with Vox
Universal Music Lobby Visualization with Universal Music Group
The Language of Congress with Salesforce
Fan Theory with Viacom
What Airport Traffic Tells Us About the World’s Megacities
Transcending Oil with Emerson Collective
Mapping Gastronomic Borders in the US
The Structure of Stand-Up Comedy
Mapping Slavery Against US Incarceration
What is a Superteam in the NBA?
The Words That Are “Most Hip Hop”
The Most Succesful Labels in Hip Hop with Rhymesayers
The Entire History of Kickstarter with Kickstarter
Plot Trends for Top-Grossing Film from the Past 50 Years
The Emergence Of Slang, Using Search Data
How Diverse Are US Newsrooms? with Google
The Best Year in Music with Billboard
Do NBA Refs Favor the Home Team?
How Robert Glasper Sampled Miles Davis on “Ghetto Walkin” with Sony
Ranking the Most Unlikely NBA Comebacks
The 2,452 Wikipedia Pages on which Miles Davis is Mentioned with Sony
Trump vs. Clinton, by YouTube views with Google News
Crowdsourcing the Definition of “Punk” with Converse
The Largest Analysis of Film Dialogue by Gender, Ever
Hollywood’s Gender Divide and its Effect on Films
Misc
Climate Zones: how will your city feel in the future? Editor
Social Trust Index with Aspen Institute DesignerDeveloper
i5 PRME with PRME Story
Earth Alliance with Earth Alliance Data
Dark Patterns EditorDesignerDeveloper
How you play spades is how you play life EditorDesignerDeveloper
How officer complaints are investigated EditorDesigner
Why are K-pop groups so big? EditorDesignerDeveloper
The Physical Traits that Define Men and Women in Literature EditorDesignerDeveloper
NEW SLANG: IBF | NBC Left Field with NBC Data
Are Hit Songs Becoming Less Musically Diverse? EditorDesigner
What Music Do Americans Love the Most? 50 Detailed Fan Maps with New York Times Data