Responses by Guillermo Brotons, creative director, Decimal; Sarah Rogers, creative director, Long Lead; and Cherif Zouein, product director, Decimal.

Background: “Home of the Brave is a seven-part multimedia investigative epic about the history of the West Los Angeles Veterans Affairs (VA), a nearly 400-acre campus donated to the federal government to house and care for disabled veterans,” Sarah Rogers explains. “Once an idyllic haven for soldiers returning home, much of the land is now dilapidated or leased out to unrelated third-parties, including a parking lot company, an oil drilling outfit, a private high school and a public university. Meanwhile, Los Angeles has become the nation’s capital for veteran homelessness. The project asks how—and why—we got to the point where veterans are sleeping and dying on the sidewalks just outside the VA gates.

“The target audience is broad: Americans interested in veteran care on both side of the political spectrum,” Rogers continues. “We sought to create impact and bring awareness to this issue as a class-action lawsuit of veterans versus the VA is about to go to trial.”

Larger picture: “This project isn’t part of a larger proportional campaign but is a Long Lead creation,” says Rogers. “Our mission is to create journalism without compromise, and all our projects are in-depth, immersive, impactful and independent.”

Design core: “The site’s style is immersive, clean, bold and engaging,” says Rogers. “Partnering with Decimal, we took an investigative epic of more than 35,000 words but made it digestible to users and visually compelling throughout. The design elements are pulled from military garb and branding styles but with a modern twist. It was important that this piece felt very contemporary yet timeless, as this is an issue that has been ongoing for decades.”

Time constraints: “Because of the sensitive nature of the place we were shooting the video, it took a long time to get the legal clearance and permits,” Guillermo Brotons says. “So, we had to wait a long time to have the final assets for the site. There was not much to do—just to be patient.”

Navigation structure: “Home of the Brave consists of different chapters or parts,” says Brotons. “The sequence of these parts was essential for the narrative of the project. For this reason, Parts are the main way to navigate the site. As a secondary navigation, we have the Credits and the Subscribe pages.”

Technology: “Home of the Brave is a headless build with a WordPress/GraphQL CMS and a Next.js front end,” Cherif Zouein says. “It is the same stack and architecture we have used so far for all of our work with Long Lead.”