Endangered Species Screen Printing
Pilot project for an international youth program that will be launching in Nebraska and expanding to other locations throughout the world. This will put the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and the Hixson Lied College of Fine and Performing Art at the forefront with research in the areas of art, biodiversity, and health for youth.
This project was a collaboration with students at Clinton Elementary school located in Lincoln, Nebraska. I created 2 shirt designs that both educate and bring awareness to two different endangered species in Nebraska. I chose to focus on the black footed ferret and the lake sturgeon, and I pulled inspiration from many simple, vintage national park tees. I wanted them to belong to the same visual system and I also wanted to give them a bit of humor.
Lake Sturgeon
This is the graphic that I created for the lake sturgeon. I wanted to stick with simple but wanted there to be some sort of texture as well, so I decided to incorporate a halftone dot pattern into both of my colored graphics. This shirt is sort of "punny" and I had a lot of fun coming up with this idea! Each graphic has a colored as well as black/white version. This was intended so that the kids had the opportunity to color in their own shirts with fabric markers.
Black Footed Ferret
The graphic I made for the black footed ferrets isn't quite as "punny" as the sturgeon, but I wanted to give them personality just as I did with the other one. Here we have a band of ferrets protesting against the unfair treatment of prairie dogs.
These are the two hang tags that I made for the item of clothing these graphics would be printed on. I incorporated the splash color of each graphic into the design and created a cute animal cutout cover tag for the front. Each tag has information about the species and informs the consumer about what they can do to make an impact or help these species.
I was prompted to create a promotional poster for one of my species, using the graphics system I created. I decided to create my poster on the lake sturgeon, and incorporate the graphic I created in addition to setting some of the text into the same font.
Lastly, I created 3 social media posts promoting the two species and my graphics. I used the specific color for each animal and for my third post I used ferret graphics in the background and decided to promote national endangered species day instead. Each caption offers a bit more information as well as helpful hashtags.
For this project I created graphics and a visual system for two endangered species in Nebraska. I compiled copious amounts of research and really spent time getting to know both of these creatures. My graphics and visual system were created with the audience of elementary schoolers in mind, and therefore I stuck to simple messaging and non-complex graphics. I really enjoy illustrating animals and helping endangered species is something that I've always been passionate about, so I really enjoyed this project. I had a lot of fun coming up with my concepts and I'm glad that I had the opportunity to further educate myself and others about the status of these two species.
