Go to the interactive story “The cutting edge ” to see how new drone technology is helping scientists in the uphill battle against plant extinction
How is new drone tech helping plant extinction? Tag along on a visual flight through this interactive as we explain how using robotic arms attached to the drone allows scientists from National Tropical Botanical Garden and Outreach Robotics to discover and collect rare plants once thought unreachable in hidden cliffs.
This original pitched story was created along with the Reuters Graphics team, Simon Scarr, developed by Sudev Kiyada, and written by Gloria Dickie.
The most rewarding part of the reporting was getting to do fieldwork with drone expert Ben Nyberg and learning how to rope rappel to survey plants with botanist expert Ken Wood! Plus an unexpected bonus of exploring plants in the metaverse with VR glasses.
field work for drone plant project
After gathering incredible info from the field trip, I returned back to the drawing board! Figuring out the storytelling and UX is always the most fun part of a project. Starting with pencil thumbnails, then bringing them to Adobe XD to simulate how our audience will experience the story.
drone plant project pencil sketch drone plant project UX sketch
I also worked closely with the scientist to narrow down the most representative rare plants that benefited from the technology to illustrate, their discovery stories to highlight, and most importantly, gathering references from photos, literature, and herbarium specimen of each, since finding live references was close to impossible. For the highlighted plants, I opt for detailed traditional botanical illustrations since we want to show readers what they really look like! The other infographic art was created in a more sketchy style to not compete visually with the detailed illustration, yet still using watercolor to make sure the style was cohesive. Nori the cat🐈 was a good supervisor making sure I make my deadlines.
illustration for story
illustration process with cat Illustration process
The entire collaboration took over a year, but in the end, we worked together, sharing our love for plant conservation and each of our unique skill sets, to complete this dynamic visual story for Reuters Graphics. We were proud to share this important work during the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in late 2022.
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