Back in 2022 when I attended the Cellular and Molecular Fungal Biology GRC, I saw a poster with an unusual figure. It was a model of their work, but rather than being made digitally, either through BioRender, PowerPoint, or other software, it was hand-drawn. I had never seen something like this in a professional scientific setting before. Although at the time I was still a first year grad student, trying to just figure out what I was doing at any given moment, I told myself that I would one day try to approach science this way.
Scientific illustration is a form of “sci-comm,” or science communication. Often times getting your work across is challenging, even to those in the same field. By illustrating the concepts at varying levels of depth and intricacy, people can take in your message in a way that bypasses the need for certain background knowledge. That being said, sometimes illustrations aren’t very clear, may require reading the caption, or simply can’t be simplified any further. There’s a lot of variation, as one would expect.
Where do science illustrations come up, you may ask? Well, as I mentioned, posters and papers will usually include them. Some journals, like Cell I believe, actually require graphical abstracts, but many papers will usually include some way of summing up their work anyways. Outside of this, science illustrations are used in learning materials for people of all ages, such as in textbooks and documentaries, as well as in public information, like signs or ads. For instance, we’ve all probably seen hand washing signs out in public before that include the steps and times to properly clean your hands. These things all require science illustrators. With AI getting more popular, there is concern that this work will get taken over, but after the creepy, botched mouse figure, I am not sure I’m all that worried (image below for the laughs).
When I wrote my Master’s thesis (over a year ago now… yikes), I was told to include more figures in my introduction chapter. Since this chapter was a literature review and not new information/data I generated, I felt pretty lost at first. In the rush, I threw stuff together on Powerpoint, with recycled ideas from previous papers (citing them, of course). It didn’t look great, but it did the job at the time.
Now that I’m essentially “restarting” my PhD, I have more knowledge of how to and how not to do things. So, since I had to write a document called a “prospectus” this semester, which includes yet another literature review, I decided to attempt making it more my own. Using watercolours, I painted my figures this time, taking time to consider both the message and smaller details in my work. Some of them looked better than anything I could do digitally, while some of them were so-so. Below are a few of them.
My committee seemed to really like these figures, along with other ones I didn’t show here, and my hope is that I can create figures like this to publish in future manuscripts.
I’ve also been trying to give some other types of art a shot. I recently have been working on a window painting for the new undergrad lab building. It’s a WIP, and I’m now adding color to it, but I think it looked great when it was just outlines, too.
I don’t think my future jobs will ever be full time in art, but finding ways to include art in what I already do has been incredibly rewarding.
Happy reading,
-Beppa
