Our “Independent Journalism for an Independent Life” campaign turned the focus onto New York Times readers for the first time, showing that what you read inspires who you are. The work tells the story of our subscribers, celebrating the point where their curiosity collides with the values of our independent journalism.

We wanted to open the campaign up from the main subscriber stories, and turn it into something every reader could have.

This led us to “Story Portrait,” a first-of-its-kind interactive experience that taps into our users’ reading history to paint a portrait of their independent lives. Like the rest of the campaign, the headlines had to perfectly stretch every corner of the screen to fill the frame with the reader’s life. To do this automatically, we developed a specialized algorithm that could pull from a reader’s most-read headlines and string them together in a connected thread. No matter the word length or fonts, the algorithm could simulate over 500 iterations of headline combinations, then assess the most beautiful layout using a kerning recognition tool—fitting them perfectly within a 4:3 frame. As a result, the program generated beautifully art-directed portraits for millions of subscribers—each in a matter of seconds.

To make the experience even more personal, we developed a palette inspired by our journalism—assigning different sections of The Times to each color. As the headlines generated on-screen, users could watch the colors of their most-read sections blend together into an even more unique and shareable portrait.

The result was a perfectly art-directed headline portrait that was personal to each user. It became The Times's most engaging interactive brand website to date. Thousands of readers were able to make, own and share something beautiful and unique that reflects who they are—and how they think—through the lens of The Times.