Science Friday Live 2025
Because of the success of the Cannavan editorial illustration I did for Science Friday the previous May, when Senior Manager of Experiences Diana Plasker wanted to evolve the look and feel for the Science Friday Live event branding in a more illustrative direction, she emailed me. I was assigned two cities—Salt Lake City, UT and Columbia, MO—and tasked with playfully depicting the science that happens in each in order to promote Science Friday’s live event for potential audiences.
After poring over photographs of both cities and parsing which of the client-suggested imagery to include, I sketched out four concepts each for SLC and Columbia. I first drew them out in my sketchbook just to get the basic ideas down. For SLC, most incorporated the Wasatch and Oquirrh mountain ranges, while for Columbia most featured Jesse Hall, the iconic main building of the University of Missouri.
Next, I recomposed and cleaned up each concept in a simplified digital sketch to send to Diana for notes. This step helped me separate the planes of each composition and evolve the ideas I had just sketched out.
Diana chose Sketch #2 for SLC and #1 for Columbia, which were for the record my favorites for each. Though the Missouri mule in the lab coat would’ve been fun too.
Finally, I drew out full-size illustrations for each city, fully realizing my sketches in color and detail. Since I knew these were going to have to be sliced down into multiple sizes and made into banners, I made sure to leave room at the edges of each composition to facilitate the change of dimension and the addition of text.
Courtesy of Science Friday
Courtesy of Science Friday
The final step was to add a little graphic design—bringing in the on-image text that will provide the crucial event information for the banner.
Client
Science Friday on NPR
Year
2025
Team
Senior Manager of Experiences - Diana Plasker
