Self analysis of 'world ozone day' project
Duration of Project: 2 weeks
Introduction
For this Project I decided to focus on the issue of the decline of the ozone layer in our universe and thought it would be interesting to explore the graphic design style of science illustrators in combination with editorial elements to give it a more formatted style.
Research about campaign
Deciding to focus my campaign on ‘World Ozone day’’, for 2024, that celebrates the Montreal protocol that was established in1987. The Montreal protocol is where the United Nations plan to return the ozone layer and our climate to its healthier state back in 1980 by the year 2040 and the Antarctic hole by 2066.
We have already made significant progress every year, but more challenges and new research have surfaced, and it shows that there is always room for improvement.
They hope to reduce the use of ozone depleting substances in order for the ozone to go through the Chapman cycle, which is where the ozone layer naturally heals itself.
Essentially, the call of action I needed to create in my campaign would be to raise awareness in the public to enforce change for the reduction of greenhouse gases. If the ozone layer is damaged that negatively impacts our climate, meaning that the earth’s protective layer that stops extreme UV rays wouldn't exist and could damage and destroy a vase amount of life on earth. Making it impossible to store carbon, causing it to sit in our atmosphere as carbon dioxide which leads to our earth heating up to a very detrimental temperature.
The Montreal protocol also has introduced a means to phase-out the use of fluorochemicals which is much more harmful than CO2, this is used in household appliances such as fridges and fire extinguishers and many other household products.
A new focus is on nitrous oxide, which is an ODS and a greenhouse gas. The use of this gas has increased by 40% since 1980, and it’s incredibly damaging.
They exempt the phase-out on the use of feedstock as well, under the impression that its production was so low it didn’t affect our ozone layer or climate. They have now found research that concludes that fluorochemicals are being released into the atmosphere at the same rate and equivalent to 492 million Tonnes of CO2.
I have concluded from my research that the ‘’call for action’’ in my campaign for climate change and the health of our ozone layer is to raise public awareness to reduce fluorochemical production, such as feedstock, so that the UN could be pushed to write a new treaty to phase-out these harmful chemicals as well.
Graphic Design Style & Art Style
How I would tackle this issue as a graphic design
I thought I would merge and pay tribute to the old and the new by using science illustrations as my editorial theme. Where I would draw and place in symbols and illustrations that state the concerning facts that I have found from my research, in order to gain attention and attraction to this matter. I would want to include the petition created by ‘Change’, that wants to get rid of CFCs from household appliances. This is with hope that this would gain enough traction to be brought up to the UN.
Designers I took Inspiration from
Genevieve Jones: She was a science illustrator in the civil war in the US and had found her life calling to create science illustrations after having to break off an engagement. This was encouraged by her parents and in order to fund the project, and in 1879, her parents would start a subscription that soon had everyone buying into it, even Theodore Roosevelt whilst he was studying in Harvard. She was the first to create detailed images that could specify the details of all birds' species in her area. Not long after she passed away on May 13th of 1847 but had asked her mother to learn how to illustrate in the same fashion as her to continue her project and legacy.
Genevieve Jones, Baltimore Oriole, 1879
Although Jone’s work was more based on biology, she piqued my interest in her style of illustration and her legacy as a woman who contributed to science is something that I would like to extract into my design. The style of typeface (this appears handwritten) used in her work is very clear and fitting, I thought this would convey the message that I would like to send to my viewers very clearly.
Leonardo da Vinci: Another great science illustrator that I would like to draw inspiration from is Leonardo de Vinci, his world renounced artwork is very prevalent in the history of science. His detailed diagrams of the anatomy of the human body, and how it is all accurately depicted on stained brown paper is an aesthetic I would want to incorporate into my work. One work that stood out to me the most is the Vitruvian Man, where he took the principles of geometry for the configuration of the human body. Where a man stands in a wide stans with his arms above his head to make a square, it would form a circle if traced around the ends of his hands and feet. The geometry used in his style is one way I could align my illustrations and text to be informatively compact, yet still pleasing to the eye.
Leonardo da Vinci, The Vitruvian Man, c.1490
Charles Darwin’s illustrations: Despite him being an evolutionist rather than a physicist, this poster captured my attention, from the use of colour to represent different levels of incline of the mountain. Although this serves a functional purpose in the diagram, I also found the colour scheme interesting and thought that I could also include accents of colour in this format when creating my campaign poster.
Geological observations on South America, Charles Darwin, 1846
Current Graphic Designers Inspirations
One Italian graphic designer I found that did a campaign on climate change was Elisa Zanchin, she is an art director that helped to create this campaign climate in conjunction with a running store ‘WHY_RUN’. I found it very clever how they used the store’s name and created a double meaning, it says ‘why run’ - the brand’s name underneath it is saying, ‘Climate change is faster’. In every scene in the campaign has either a motion graphic take or a photo of rain pouring in the background to link it back to how climate change could affect runners, since the weather change is a very prominent consequence of climate change. This is an excellent example of playing with a brand title to create a positive impact on the world.
'Why Run Milano', Elisa Zanchin, 2024
Design Process
As seen from the inspiration I have taken from older science illustrators from this project, the style is very much a clear and clean sketches, my process would include a combination of traditional media of using 140 LB and 300 GSM paper to create the authentic grainy paper to draw on. I would create the foundation on this using the traditional method in order to then transfer it over to editing Adobe software and insert editorial side notes to attribute to the informative side to this project properly. Perhaps also using collage to give a detailed overall image. Trying to keep to the theme of ‘our planet’ as well, but in a more retrospective view, than in an everyday situation like how Elisa Zanchin did in her project.
Font research
From looking at other scientific illustration books the best fonts that those editors would use would be fonts such as ‘Garamond’ and ‘Caslon’, considering that there’s are the easiest to view on any resolution on digital devices.
Garamond comes from Claude Garamond, had to create a typeface for the French King
Francis I, during the early 15th century. This later was revised into our modern variant by Adobe in 1989 by Robert Slimbach. French publishers must use Garamond in certain historical editions. This would fit well with the informative theme I would like to include in this campaign’s poster.
Calson was also used for the American declaration of Independence, originally created as an English type face by William Caslon in the 17th century. This would be a good font to use in combination with Garamond to make the message as clear as possible.
Mood board
I included a lot of the illustrations from the artists mentioned above, along with atmospheric elements and drew out the colour scheme from all of these images to give the same psychological association.
My Mood board of the poster
Sketches
This is a rough sketch I created purely for the overall concept of where I would like certain objects to be placed, this is to conceptualise the composition for the piece. I wanted to draw the nitrous oxide molecule and to link it to destroying the ozone layer, that is depicted by the temperature rays.
My first sketch of the poster
Following the draft, it was transferred onto Photoshoot, adding a photograph of the world, and then editing it with a texture from 'Texturelabs.org' to create a 'thumb print' texture that is referring to the term 'carbon footprint'. Making it seem like a finger print instead in red to give a more sinister tone to man kind leaving their mark on this earth if nothing is changed, referring to the term 'their bloods on you hands' for all the creations suffering due to the detriment of our atmosphere's health.
My first Digital Sketch Up
I could see that the background appeared two-dimensional, and inserted a paper texture from 'Texturelabs' once more to create some layering and dimension. Taking from the inspiration of previous science illustrators that held a great deal of responsibility for discovering the anatomy of our earth, I created hints and created a reference to the blue in red-shift and inserted it into a box on the opposing side, making the final piece appear more cohesive.
My Illustrated Piece
Creating a diagram to honour the past science illustrators with the world's gases that related to green house gases. To signify the earth and it's life dying, I illustrated a dried up tree, almost 'holding' the earth on a withered tree with painted 'fog' behind the earth.
One Option for Typography display
Upon completing that, I realised the 'call to action' needed to be more comprehensible to the public in the font used. That meant abandoning the 'Carlson' font used in the 1800s, and went with a clear modern sans serif font instead. Finding a complimenting colour scheme took a few different attempt.
The final outcome
Referring back to the 60s style of font 'TypoGraphica', making it very simple and clean to read. To balance out the weight of the text, placing a mirror text on top and bottom seemed to harmonise the piece. Adding a clipping mask to finish off the rendering of the project by adding in texture to the txt using a 'dry-oil' brush stroke.
How I could have improved the piece
The final outcome's quality could have been improved if I inserted more traditional mediums of artwork, taking more aspects from historical figures that helped to discover more about our earth. Since the colour of the objects, such as the tree only included flat colour with line work that was meant to imitate pen work, the pixelate and stiffness of the line work. Another way to combat this would be to download a better brush set from online, although the classic pen work would appear more organic.
References
“| Ozone Secretariat.” Ozone.unep.org, ozone.unep.org/new-ozone-heroes-campaign-celebrates-efforts-protect-all-life-earth.
“Behance.” Behance.net, 2024, www.behance.net/gallery/209369869/Climate-Change-is-Faster-Why-Run-
Milano?tracking_source=search_projects. Accessed 7 Nov. 2024.
“Genevieve Jones.” Obelisk Art History, 2020, www.arthistoryproject.com/artists/genevieve-estelle-jones/. Accessed 7 Nov.
2024.
Hogue, Cheryl. “How to Say Goodbye to PFAS.” Chemical & Engineering News, 20 Nov. 2019,
cen.acs.org/environment/persistent-pollutants/say-goodbye-PFAS/97/i46.
Jan 31, Danielle Underferth / Published, and 2023. “Understanding the UN Report on Ozone Layer Recovery.” The Hub, 31 Jan.
2023, hub.jhu.edu/2023/01/31/un-report-ozone-layer-recovery/.
“Leonardo Da Vinci. Pioneered the Integration of Art and Science - Google Search.” Google.com, 2024, www.google.com/search?safe=active&sca_esv=f5734af37fe2ac71&rlz=1C1GCEA_enGB1132&q=Leonardo+da+Vinc
i.+Pioneered+the+integration+of+art+and+science. Accessed 7 Nov. 2024.
“Ozone Layer Depletion - Take Action on Change.org.” Change.org, 2024, www.change.org/t/ozone-layer-depletion-en-us.
Accessed 7 Nov. 2024.
“PFAS and Home Treatment of Water - MN Dept. Of Health.” Www.health.state.mn.us,
www.health.state.mn.us/communities/environment/hazardous/topics/pfashometreat.html.
“Scientific Illustration.” Obelisk Art History, www.arthistoryproject.com/subjects/scientific-illustrators/.
“World Ozone Day 2024 — Exploring the Link between Ozone Protection and Climate Action - EIA.” Eia-International.org, 16 Sept. 2024, eia-international.org/blog/world-ozone-day-2024-exploring-the-link-between-ozone-protection-andclimate-action/. Accessed 7 Nov. 2024.
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