Client : Fisheye Self Initiative
CONCEPT / LOGO DESIGN
Save The Oceans
The oceans face a massive and growing threat from plastics. An estimated 17.6 billion pounds of plastic leaks into the marine environment from land-based sources every year—that’s roughly equivalent to dumping a garbage truck full of plastic into our oceans every minute. And plastics never go away! As an ongoing initiative, Fisheye has focused on the of the small state of Goa – to raise awareness on the dangers of littering, burning, dumping of plastic in the waterways, rivers and ocean. Plastic shopping bags, beer can holders, straws and plastic bottles often dumped in the sea or left on the beaches are killing, strangling and destroying our marine life. Plastics suffocate corals to death, the microplastic pellets dissolve in the corals and act as fish food, often find their way back to us in the form of harmful chemicals, which cause disease and death. Save the ocean. Feed the world. #saveouroceansfromplasticwaste #savesearturtles
Arun Thilak from DJ Academy Coimbatore interned at Fisheye for his final graduation project and hand illustrated and digitised Posters to raise awareness on the subject.
A glimpse into the research document and visual explorations by Fisheye intern, Arun Thilak.
POSTER 1 - SAVE OUR CORAL REEFS & SEA TURTLES
Reef corals build homes for millions of species of marine life, they support healthy ocean food webs, and protect our coastlines. Heavy plastic contamination in the ocean gets plastic to cling to and cover corals, covering the branching coral and subsequently sickens and kills the coral reefs. Studies have found bottles, diapers, cotton swabs, food wrappers clinging to the coral in our ocean and causing heavy contamination. The Poster illustrates waste plastic plunging deep into the sea bed, slowly degrading into microplastics - which are ingested by marine life and also cover and merge with the organic coral reefs. The poster details marine fauna and flora also to show also bring out the beauty and diversity of our vast marine ecosystem and how we are destroying it. Half of the ridley sea turtles found in Goa have ingested plastic and will soon be extinct from our beaches and seas.
The texture covering the organic coral reefs in the Poster is created to resemble plastic material textures - illustrating how plastic covers coral and slowly kills the reefs that sustain marine life.
POSTER 2 - A SEA OF FLOATING PLASTICS
It is estimated that in the last 20 years, more than half of the world’s plastics have been produced - the disposal and elimination processes of are not keeping pace to counteract their severe environmental impact. The Poster illustrates this sea of floating plastics and its impact on fish. The sea world starts resembling a sombre plastic world where bottles, straws, plastic bags take place of the coral, flora and marine eco system. As fish in the ocean bring water in through their gills to breath, they simultaneously absorb microscopic plastic particles. These microplastics will stay in fish and be passed on to whatever eventually eats it, potentially a human.
Hand drawn illustrations of the sea flora and corals which is made up bottles, straws, plastic bags... We do not want to eat fish that have been contaminated by plastics and the chemicals that are used to make them. We owe it to future generations to protect the ocean and the organisms that call it home.
POSTER 3 - SEA TURTLE STORIES
The Poster illustrates how the sea turtles are stuck in a plastic filled ocean and how plastic is becoming part of the flesh and skin of the turtle. You bought a six-pack can of beer, took off the plastic ring and threw it on the beach. It soon is swept into sea and a baby sea turtle swims through one of the holes but doesn’t make it all the way through; now with a six-pack ring wrapped around its body. The baby sea turtle continues to grow, but the plastic ring stays the same size. The turtle’s growth is stunted, and its shell cannot fully form in the middle. It is extremely unlikely this turtle will make it to adulthood. This sort of tragedy repeats itself all the time.
Organic illustrations of the plastic bag and water bottle have been created for the Poster to resemble the deep sea. The plastic bag you used for a total of five minutes will remain for many years, and will break into smaller and smaller pieces - called microplastics. Soon, freely floating freely in the water, it looks like a jellyfish and is misled and consumed by a turtles, fish, sea lion...which slowly kills them and also finds its way back to us by consuming fish.
POSTER 4 - FISHING FOR PLASTIC
The Poster is a depiction of how the plastic waste is contaminating the ocean and affecting aquatic life and the lives of fishermen whose livelihood depend on the it. Boats hauling in nets are filled with rubbish, instead of fish. There is no action more effective than local grassroots community action. The Poster is aimed to galvanize the people to volunteer at local events to remove plastic litter from beaches and streams, and ‘fish’ for plastic floating in the ocean - towards a world with less plastic waste. As a tourist or traveller, when you are on a boat, bicycle, or on foot - pick up plastic garbage, especially when you find it on the beach or other wild and beautiful places.
Discarded single-use plastics are notoriously ubiquitous and have adverse and far-reaching environmental and socio-economic impacts, including on human health. Estimates are there could be more plastic than fish in the sea by 2050. As a community, we need to empower every fisherman to catch plastic and then bring it back and upcycle it.
POSTER 4 - SAVE OUR SEA BIRDS
Plastics in our ocean takes the form of discarded single-use packaging, like straws, plastic cups, bottles and bags. The packaging of household items, like shampoo, cleaning materials - even be polyester and nylon clothing, shed microplastics when washed. Seabirds are birds that live primarily on the ocean. Most seabirds live out their days over the open ocean, and far away from humans. Plastic ingestion also affects juveniles that are too young to hunt on their own. Adult birds return to nests with plastic that they have mistaken for food. The chicks ingest the plastic and are less likely to survive to adulthood. Dead seabirds are often found with stomachs that are full of plastic waste. It is projected that by 2050, 99% of seabird species will be ingesting plastic.
The Poster portrays the beauty of Goa’s landscape, forests and flora. Even though our sea birds stay far away from humans, the impact of the careless behaviour of human consumerism have far reaching impact from home - causing severe environment damage to the heritage of our ecosystem,
So what exactly are microplastics? They are small pieces of plastic forming from the breakdown of plastic debris in our oceans and lakes. The Poster uses the visual metaphor of creating sea flora and coral to resembles plastic waste - which over time erode and break down into tiny fragments of microplastics.The texture created in the Poster trapped turtles and fish in this sea of plastic. Microplastics find their way into the water, soil, and even into animals and ultimately humans, entering our digestive and causing diseases like cancer. What we know about microplastics is that many small marine animals do in fact eat these tiny particles. lankton, fish larva, and filter-feeders are animals with microplastics in their bodies
If we are to avoid plastics ending up in the oceans, the solutions lie on land - collectively with all of us.
