The Hawking Effect

Studio

HYFN

Type

Site Design • Social

Client/Partner

Focus Features • Fandango

Role

UX/UI • Motion • Development

Awwwards Honorable Mention

Overview

A taxonomy of Stephen Hawking in pop-culture

As a promotion to the film The Theory of Everything we created The Hawking Effect, an interactive grand taxonomy that users could explore Stephen Hawking's effect on today’s media—from Star Trek to The Simpsons, Legally Blonde to Pink Floyd.

My Role

Bringing story, motion, and interaction into harmony

I owned visual design, motion, and the overall interactive experience, creating a cohesive visual language that balanced cinematic presentation with fun, unique, intuitive user interactions. Working across research, concept development, animation, and implementation, I focused on making sure the experience felt immersive, polished, and emotionally engaging.

D3.js with several customizations was used as the primary data and animation driver. For social media, rather than manually create an asset for each possible connection (several hundreds), we tapped into our taxonomy database, creating tooling that sourced all possible connections, replaced assets, and exported final shareable images in a matter of seconds.

Design Approach

Inviting exploration and evoking curiosity

Rather than relying on interface elements alone, the experience used movement, transitions, and visual composition to guide attention and reinforce the narrative of exploration and curiosity. Every interaction was designed to deepen immersion, creating an experience where the presentation became part of the story itself.