This mock journal cover was an assignment for MSC2016: Visualization Methods. The project was to create an editorial illustration intended for the cover of a journal based on an existing article.

During my degree in public health, I studied the scientific basis for epidemiological thinking, which taught me a lot about why anti-scientific beliefs arise and persist. I wanted to explore this in my journal cover, so I chose an article that looked at cognitive reasoning behind anti-scientific thinking (Kendrick, D.T., Cohen, A.B., Neuberg, S.L., & Cialdini, R.B. (2018). The science of anti-science thinking. Scientific American, 319(1),36-41. https://doi.org/10.1038/scientificamerican0718-36).  

I wanted to make it approachable, so I used simplified human figures. In keeping with the theme and to add a bit of playfulness to the piece, I had them standing on a flat earth. The microscope and petri dish were added to reinforce the fact that the article is looking at the science behind it all.

Rough thumbnails, refined thumbnails, and the comprehensive sketch were drawn in Clip Studio Paint. The assets were then modelled in Maya and rendered using Arnold. The image was touched up in Adobe Photoshop and the final layout was done in Illustrator.

Objective: to create an editorial illustration that communicates a key message in a compact and effective way

Audience: educated lay audience

Format: 8.5x11” journal cover

Client: Prof. Marc Dryer

Medium: Maya, Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator