iEarth Education Research Publication Series

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Project: Fundamentals of graphic design and figure sharing for the geosciences

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Authors: Grace E. Shephard, Fabio Crameri

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Funding from iEarth: 45 000 NOK

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Graphics, as referred to here, could include figures, maps, charts, plots, animations, sketches, and even posters and presentations.  However, what makes a good graphic? What are some of the common visualization pitfalls that people make? What colours should be chosen? It follows that students are seldom taught answers to these questions or about visual design principles more generally.

Another, related scenario is where to find accurate, up-to-date and visually pleasing graphics (such as that in Image 1)? A scientist, for example, might like to show a graphic for a common scientific process or concept but does not have the time or skills to make it themself. Surely someone else has made a similar figure before - but where to find it, download it, and give correct credit to the author/artist?

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The s-Ink project (www.s-Ink.org), which is a word play on the geological process of “source-to-sink,” makes high-quality (geo)scientific figures freely available to the community. Importantly, all s-Ink content is made available via a Creative Commons license, so those who create content will receive credit. s-Ink was launched in early 2022 by three researchers: Fabio Crameri, Grace Shephard and Eivind Straume. It is a volunteer-based project and a pre-print has been posted on the EarthArXiv server (Crameri et al., 2022, https://doi.org/10.31223/X51P78) with more details.

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The team saught iEarth Seed funds to teach about graphic design through a series of workshops. It met aims of iEarth through active student learning and contributions, and cross-institute cooperation. The course included tips about science visualization fundamentals, colour theory and design, and presentation skills. By providing feedback on graphics developed by the workshop attendees, and encouraging their upload to s-Ink.org, it would also expand the breadth of content hosted on the community-driven resource. Thanks to iEarth seed funding, the team were able to hold two workshops: a digital workshop “Create and share better science graphics” held on 12 and 13th September 2022 (repeated twice), and with 23 registered attendees, and an in-person workshop “Scientific and accessible design” held 8th May 2024 at UNIS, Svalbard. For this latter event there were 50 registered attendees including two UNIS classes (including AG351/851 Arctic Tectonics and Volcanism, and AT319 Arctic Shipping), which led to some diverse questions and feedback requests.

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Knowing how to create and share science graphics is an important skillset, and we hope that courses like this will inspire scientists of all career stages and backgrounds.

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Read the iEarth Education Research Publication here on s-ink

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(https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/618148e38e60e464492b5f99/6724de7fed544aaacf88b25d_IMRAD%20Short%20paper%20report%20format%20iEarth%20SEED%20projects-Shephard-Crameri.pdf)

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