This job was to design graphics for two panels for display in the lobby of the new Scottish Oceans Institute. The main panel was a timeline showing the history of Marine Science at St Andrews, which was developed with Dr Sascha Hooker from a presentation she had written perviously. The other panel showed details of a local school science engagement project about plastics in the marine environment.
I developed branding for both which included the SOI logo, but also made a connection to long wave-like decorative panels on the exterior of the new building.
The location where these panels were to be shown is also to include a large aquarium featuring typical North Sea marine species. Unfortunately the aquarium had not been installed at the time when the building was to be opened by Scotland’s First Minister. When I visited the site about a fortnight before the opening, there was an 3x1m empty gap filled with some blue plastic boards, and the aquarium was not expected to be present, let alone set up and running for a month at least. That didn’t seem ideal, so the SOI Director and the aquarium manager agreed that we should use the large ‘window’ to make a large temporary photo-frieze showing images of ‘BioBlitz’.
‘BioBlitz’ is a major annual national citizen science project that staff from the School of Biology at St Andrews have taken part in for several years. I designed a photomontage of images I’d shot over about three years using the same branding as the other panels. It might only be temporary, but I was keen for it to fit in and look good.
