Fade To White.

After much wriggling and writhing with oceanic layouts, the final coral bleaching collaboration for Synthia magazine looks something like this:

The original drawing was shaped to fit down the entire left panel of the spread allowing the title to 'eat' into it as if bleaching, however the detailed nature of Dan's article meant there was not enough space for it to do so comfortably. This led to a pleasing staggered effect, which also beneficial in 'breaking up' the text and making it a lot less psychologically 'wordy'. Experimenting with fading the coral's colour away to white to emulate the bleaching process, this left vacant areas in the landscape that simply looked like areas void of growth rather than indicating that there was anything there to start with. To resolve this I drained the colour away in the middle of the image then began returning it again (in line with Dan's comments on coral rehabilitation efforts) in conjunction with overlaying line drawings on top of the faded areas to cement their definition.

I have enjoyed the interactive approach between myself and The Scientist: Daniel Franklin, and would like to warmly thank him for his enthusiasm and advice.

Look out for us in June's edition of Synthia.