Hook Fish, Not Birds
Educational Poster
Project Overview
Summary
This project was to create an educational outreach poster on fishing wire entanglement on wetland birds, to be depicted at fishing reserves.
Problem
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Design an eye catching image to draw audiences into the issue
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Depict the various ways fishing wire entanglement impacts wetland birds
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Create a clear call-to-action for audiences to interact with
Audience
Visitors to fishing reserves
Project Limitations
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Large scale poster
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Information must be displayed in short, concise paragraphs or bullet points.
Process
Project proposal, research, and sketching
The project proposal was a poster on fishing wire entanglement of wetland birds. As a novice birder, this topic felt close to my heart and important to discuss.
Before starting the composition, I spent a lot of time researching and sketching pelicans. I knew I wanted a dynamic pelican image as the focal point so I took time to really learn the form and anatomy of the bird. Sketches came from photographs, Field Museum specimens, and comparative skeletons from UIC's Vertebrate lab I was lucky enough to TA for.
Composition Planning
For this piece, I already had in mind I wanted a large pelican to take the center stage. My next problem to work out was what other elements should be visualized and how to get the audience to look over the whole poster.
Illustration Sketches
With the composition decided on, my next step was sketching out all of the elements and making sure they fit together. Since I decided on a linework style, I wanted to make sure the large shapes were close to exact before I began the long process of hatching.
Illustration Development
For these illustrations, I relied on the linework and hatching to carry the load of rendering. Once that was done, I used a gouache like digital brush to color it in and reinforce the form. I opted for a lighter color palette to balance out the heavy visuals and content on the poster. I stuck with earthtones to emphasize the topic of the poster: conservation of the natural world.
Finished Poster
With the illustrations finished, the last step was adding it to the text layout and any final touches to make the piece feel more cohesive. At this stage I chose to include a footer for a CTA to report entangled birds. I also custom designed a small logo to represent community action in bird preservation.
