Disappearing Species
An environmental awareness poster using a black koala silhouette and cooling towers cut out of its body to connect endangered wildlife with industrial pollution and habitat loss.
- Deliverables
- Awareness poster, illustration
Inspired by a World Wildlife Fund brief, this project explores how an environmental issue can be communicated through a single image rather than a large amount of explanatory text.
I focused on the relationship between endangered wildlife and industrial activity, looking for a way to make that connection visible within the animal itself.
- Research into endangered species and environmental issues
- Concept development and sketches
- Illustration and negative-space studies
- Final awareness poster
Words before pictures
I wrote two wordlists, one for the koala and one for what threatens it: fire, oil, logging, power lines, roads, city blocks. Then I turned the words into small icons to see which ones were strong enough to share a shape with the animal.
Cutting into the koala
I drew koala silhouettes in different poses and tried cutting different shapes out of their bodies. The cooling tower, with its plume of steam, was the one that read at a glance, so it stayed.
The first icon sheets had a long list of threats: fire, oil, logging, roads, power lines. The cooling tower won because its plume of steam reads at a glance and fits inside a koala's body. The other cut-outs needed explaining. I also left out numbers, since the brief was one image, and the koala and the factory share a shape, so no caption has to connect them.