Let’s dip back into graphic design this month and talk about posters. I recently created a small collection of posters that highlight some of nature’s most essential workers; pollinators!

Whether you’re stopping to smell the roses, or simply eating lunch, you can thank the thousands of pollinating animals who keep our ecosystem alive and thriving. By carrying pollen from one flower to another, these animals play an absolutely crucial role in the reproduction of plants. While it may be somewhat of an imperceptible process to us humans, pollination is something we rely on immeasurably to survive. Unfortunately, many pollinators have experienced severe population decline over the last few decades. Habitat loss and climate change, caused by human negligence and systematic greed, have done terrible damage to the populations of many birds, butterflies, bees, and other crucial species. While their future may be challenging, the pollinators outside your window unknowingly carry on.

There are so many fascinating species under the “pollinator” umbrella, many of which you wouldn’t expect. I decided to use a few classic examples for this particular poster collection. The first animal I really wanted to highlight was the bat. Bees, birds, and butterflies get a lot of credit for good reason, but many bats are pollinators too. In desert and tropical environments, bats take on this important role. I decided to focus on the Pallid Bat for this poster, which lives in the deserts of North America. The Pallid bat is kind of a unique case, as it’s an insectivorous AND nectarivorous (at least in the springtime). During that particular season, Pallid bats will seek out nectar from native cacti flowers.

Next up I decided to highlight the hummingbird. Hummingbirds seemed almost mythical to me as a kid. I had read a lot about them, but rarely ever saw one. There are hundreds of species across the Americas, but I’ve always loved the textured look of the Scaly Breasted Hummingbird. So that’s the one I picked for this second poster.

And for the last poster, I wanted to highlight one of the most famous pollinators; the butterfly (maybe I’ll make a bee poster eventually). More specifically the Eastern Tiger Swallowtail, a type of butterfly I see all the time here in the spring and summer months. Monarchs are cool and all, but I’ve always loved the look of the swallowtail a little bit more.

Anyway, with my all subjects picked out, it was time to sketch out some layouts. I wanted each poster to represent a different time of the day. And since pollinators pollinate as they feed, why not focus on different “meals” too? That’s the theme I chose for the header text. Additionally, I wanted to include two facts about each animal. So I needed to design these posters with all of this text in mind. Here are the rough sketches:

And with these sketches as a springboard, I got to work in Photoshop. One of my main focuses with this series was to do a bit of photoshoping/photobashing. I didn’t want to just find a single image and work around it. I wanted to take elements from several different images and craft a composition by combining them. In each poster, the background, middle ground, and foreground elements are each taken from different photos. Additionally, I wanted to have a light art-nouveau aesthetic to tie these posters together. I ended up achieving that through ornate framing elements and fonts. Here are the final posters:

I started with the bat poster and worked from there. That one has a bit of a darker aesthetic. I wanted to make sure I had that one figured out before I created the other two, which have a bit more in common. I took inspiration from several old Stephen King book covers which used a modified version of the Pacella Latina font. But to push the art nouveau element a bit more, I decided to use Cinzel Decorative instead.

Cinzel Decorative has much more ornate and exaggerated serifs, which I could tie back into the nouveau-esque decorations. These are also present in the angular look of the bat’s ears and wings. Many of these swoops and tails were elements I integrated into the corner designs to tie everything together. I attempted to do this same thing with the other two posters.

Here, the text and vector elements share the shape language of the bird and flower. I followed this same principle with the next poster. Some of the swallowtail’s wing patterns are reflected in the font. I carried these motifs on to the decorative corners as well.

And there you have it! A trio of art nouveau…ish posters about pollinators! It’s always a challenge to create work as a series. You have to find a nice balance between the unique and the complementary. But I feel I succeeded on that front! On top of that, I’m pretty thrilled with how the main animal images turned out too. Mashing these photos together was a fun exercise in matching color and lighting too.

Also, I hope this gets you think a little bit more about pollinators! They’re such important animals, and their survival is our survival. I would love it if you’d consider donating to a local conservation-based charity, like the Massachusetts Urban Conservancy or the Mass Pollinator Network. Organizations like these play an important role in providing people with resources and education. Let’s do what we can to help our pollinator friends.