Moon Through History Index

An informative data visualization of how the moon has been depicted throughout the generations, explored through the lunar phases.

The Challenge

Curating the Known as New

The moon is one of our strongest visual tropes, found in the art and mythology of every human society. I dug through the internet, the library and the NASA archives, then indexed the imagery and matched each image to its lunar phase. Each year in the index is set in its own typeface, chosen to match the time and place the image was made.

New Experience When Looking at the Moons

The Scrolling System Grid

Instead of sorting the moons by date or name, the index follows the lunar phase itself, from waxing to waning: magical, mysterious, cyclic.