Merkel’s Terms in Office
Ideation & Design Exploration
This design exploration looks at Angela Merkel’s 16 years in office as chancellor of Germany - through the lens of Google Trends data.
Under the Creative Direction of Moritz Stefaner I worked for the Google New Initiative to develop initial ideas, concepts and designs for a review of Merkel’s four terms of office. The concept was adapted and featured in the social media coverage accompanying a Merkel special television broadcast on RTL that aired on July 15th, 2021.
Client | Google News Initiative
Concepts & Explorations
The concepts explore different ways of showing terms that were googled together with Angela Merkel. Google offers two different types of related terms: Top terms and top trending.
Data
Top terms are words that are most searched for in combination with a topic over a given period. In contrast, trending topics are the one more searched for more than usual during that time. Deciding which type to use was an important step. While the top related terms usually stay the same over longer periods of time, the top trending topics hint at more dramatic surges of interest usually following specific events. The top trending topics often turned out to be the best fit, because they are most characteristic for specific years.
Top Terms related to Angela Merkel
Trending Terms related to Angela Merkel
Four Cycles Timeline
For this idea, I split up the 16 years of Merkel’s chancellorship into her four terms in office. For each term, a separate timeline is shown. The timelines can either be combined into one visual showing them together, of split up into individual cards (see below).
The combined visual shows the four cycles slightly overlaid and with connections indicating how time progresses from one cycle to the next.
This visual can be used to either show top peaking terms for all years or focus on a specific category of terms such as people, events, political topics or gossip.
The progression of individual card was designed with an Instagram story in mind, where the viewer can swipe through the visuals to advance from one election period to the next. I further added images of Merkel from that period to create a more personal connection.
Bingo Card of Trending Topics
This concept takes a different approach in showing trending terms for all years together
Kuratierte Liste von jährlich trendenden Google Suchbegriffen in Verbindung mit Angela Merkel
Wichtiger red. Hinweis: Es handelt sich um trendende d.h. aufsteigende Suchbegriffe nicht die Top-Suchbegriffe in Verbindung mit Merkel (Erklärung).
Intensität der Farbe: Suchinteresse
Farbton: Thematische Einordnung
A detailed card showing the top trending term for a given year, including image and editorial annotations of the peak in search interest alongside the percentage increase of searches and a description explaining the visual.
More reduced card showing a trend histogram as more secondary information. This places the focus more on the search terms and the explanation of the peak.
Card featuring only search term, image and explanation without a graph.
Instagram Posts by RTL aktuell
This is how RTL adapted the concept for social media.
