PhD Thesis Illustrations
Much of my illustration work that is NOT Live Illustration, comes from PhD students and university research groups. Someone fills out my CONTACT form and a little email pings in my inbox. I always get a little thrill of excitement when this happens. Ooh! What treasure has just landed in my inbox? What fun thing might I get to attend? What will I learn? Who is this knocking at my email door?
It begins with “Hi, (insert name) has recommended your services so I wanted to get in touch.” Thank you immensely for recommendations. They help pay for my extravagant lifestyle of paying off my mortgage and buying food. First they are seeking a quote for the work needed then will get back to me once their funding has been secured. I always root for them, not just for myself but also for the understanding that so far this is their life’s work and I hope they will receive what is needed to carry their work forward.
Once funding is secured, we have our first online meeting. I’ve never been to Orkney but one day I would like to make the trek. After seeing the photographs and hearing about the project, I can’t help but want to see it all for myself. I remember with this project needing to use lots of paper and moveable post it notes to rearrange vast amounts of information. It all needed to flow and make visual sense without being overwhelming.
I admit it wasn’t a big bag of fun for me to draw the dystopian images. I mean, who wants to draw dead cetaceans washed up on a beach, or blighted land devoid of any living thing? The message was clear. Work with the beings that are there, don’t just plow over them so people far away can have their green energy. Plonking turbines willy nilly all over the ocean might not be a great choice when you consider the birds and ocean creatures negatively effected by that bold move. This townie has learned.
If you are looking to bring your thesis to life with illustration work, get in touch. How can we work together to make your study create memorable, life changing impact? I suppose you could use AI, but where is the human touch in that?