In the 1960s, Charles and Ray Eames created a 50-foot-long timeline of the history of mathematics as part of their exhibition Mathematica: A World of Numbers and Beyond. IBM published the timeline poster titled 'Men of Modern Mathematics' and for more than 20 years, distributed free copies of the timeline to schools around the world. Our project objectives were to re-imagine the timeline for the iPad and deliver an immersive educational experience, while preserving the beauty and integrity of the Eameses' original vision.

Minds of Modern Mathematics was designed as a tribute to Charles and Ray Eames, but also as a gift of learning from IBM in honor of its 100th anniversary. The final product was the result of an intense six-month collaboration between with IBM, the Eames Office and Euro RSCG 4D. During this time, we used a combination of continuous user research and rapid prototyping to refine the experience and develop the three main modes of navigating the timeline: a millennium overview for quick orientation, a century view for more focused exploration, and a chronological view that lets users traverse the entire timeline like an e-book. From a production standpoint, the project involved retouching over 500 high-resolution images and managing several thousand text assets representing mathematicians' bios, historical markers and links to external resources.