Laura Sorvala
Illustrator at Laura Sorvala Illustration & Graphic Recording
When ECHOES Project Manager Crona Hodges got in touch with me about ECHOES I got excited about being able to work on something that relates to climate change and nature. I guess it is part of me being Finnish – we have a deep connection with nature, and I tend to be drawn towards opportunities to draw animals and plants and how things are interconnected. I am also fond of multidisciplinary approaches and have produced illustrations for a wide range of research projects combining different academic disciplines.
As usual, my process began with a discussion exploring what might work best for the project. The aim was to create engaging visuals for the digital project launch, but also to think about a future set of images that can help visualise the work of the ECHOES project. We decided to work on presentation slides, focusing on the five key areas of the project.
Illustrations depicting some of the ECHOES activities. Clockwise from top left: Web platform tool, bird tracking, stakeholder engagement and vegetation surveys.
I chose a limited number of colours based on the ECHOES projects’ colour palette. I then sketched initial ideas that we adapted to make sure that the more abstract concepts and connections would come across in an accessible way. I also created icons and square images to optimise use across social media in future engagement efforts.
ECHOES icons.
Visual thinking is like second nature to me, but each project does bring its own challenges. For example: how to visualise the content hierarchy, tone of voice, ethnicity and gender balance, so it’s just right. My illustrations often take shape during the process of sketching and cannot be prescribed in advance. In that sense I truly appreciate clients putting their trust in me to go away and come up with ideas on how best to communicate the brief. We had several rounds of amends on some smaller details to really finetune the scientific points right. When the sketches were all good to go, I drew the final artwork in Procreate on iPad Pro – my current workhorse for both remote event work and commissions.
It was great to be part of the launch and to see the visuals being used in the presentation slides. The speakers and their messages were wonderful to draw and create a visual summary from. They were all so passionate about the possibilities of this collaborative, interdisciplinary work ahead. I am very pleased that the illustrations bring out a sense of energy and passion of people connecting with nature in different ways. I also enjoyed linking in big concepts like climate change as well as detailed scientific methods – like the DNA analysis.
All in all, I loved being part of creating visual assets for the ECHOES project and I hope to stay involved during the next couple of years.
English (UK) 
Cymraeg