Project brief: A yearlong project exploring the intersection of information technology and urban design. The project is supported by TIME and IBM and involves a series of ads appearing monthly in TIME magazine.

Approach: The ads present thought-provoking information graphics that focus on revealing unexpected connections between independent data sets. The ads began with a focus on the individual and became successively broader in scope, ending with sets that address a national trend. Each ad is initiated by the curators and developed jointly with the designers. MGMT. also created the project identity, which was based on pixelated views of urban centers. The identity is used at different scales and colors, expanding and contracting in size similar to the variable sizes of cities.

Effectiveness: The initiative focuses on polling questions and will culminate in a conference and publication in 2011.

Done really intelligently, true to the brand. Makes the content interesting.