Process and Thesis - Katie Belanger

For the past several weeks I have been developing an icon system to represent the endangered wildlife that is being threatened and pushed to extinction due to our human expansion and wasteful consumer habits. I am trying to make people aware that their daily actions do have an impact on our world, not just the giant corporations and manufacturing plants; to make people realize that we are all responsible and held accountable. I have been interested in the decrease of biodiversity and the present "mass extinctions" that have been occurring at an alarming rate since I heard over Thanksgiving break that the tiger may become extinct by the year 2012. I found this to be truly distressing news.

I wanted my icon series to be a simplified, stylized version of their real-life counterparts, using the WWF logo as a goal. My process for drawing these icons began first with images of the animal and an initial, detailed trace. I then took this tracing and, with another color, started breaking down the natural forms into more geometric shapes to be refined. Once I began work on my first design, the Blackburnian Warbler, I started to look at the illustrator Charley Harper's work and was very inspired by his simplified animal prints. After I had completed my first icon, I used it as a basis for the rest, using the same visual language and shapes, attempting to create a unified, cohesive icon system that works apart and as a group.

For my final form I plan on creating stencils of my icons and printing them, guerrilla art style, on various objects that relate to the destruction of the animal and places of industry that stand out as sites of human consumer and commercialism. For example, sea turtles have been hunted for an oil that they produce ("turtle oil") which is then used in various cosmetics. I would then print a stencil of the turtle icon on a compact of blush, so that every time one uses the product they are brushing away and erasing that animal. I will use photo-documentation to display this work, perhaps in a re purposed book.