How to illustrate science
In the very busy last week before her maternity leave, art director Peta Bell sat down with Anna Lewis to chat about her work.
What do you do?
I commission imagery to go with our stories. I take the copy or the pitch, read through it and work out stylistically what to use. Then it goes over to an image maker.
When I started, I had a big mental list of who would suit Mosaic from my time in fashion. A lot of people are up for doing something different, being challenged and using their creativity. Five years in, I get a lot of people coming to me on Instagram. I keep an eye out for interesting websites, festivals and grad shows. It’s a bit of everything.
Sometimes I know exactly what I want, so I’ll source someone based on that. Other times I hand it over to someone that I know is right for the piece, and we both read the copy and refine our ideas.
It’s a collaboration between me and whoever’s been commissioned, but I always have the final say. It’s about making sure they’re not too abstract — that, even if they are conceptual, there’s a link back to the copy.
What do the images add to a Mosaic piece?
Long form is long. The imagery is a bit of a breather, so you have a mental break to take it in.
It helps people imagine the story a bit better. Everything on Mosaic is written quite narratively, and the imagery adds an extra layer. It can take the writing into a different dimension.
What’s your style for Mosaic?
Everyone has their own take, but generally I want illustrations to be punchy, colourful, inviting but also informative. I like people who use a certain amount of colour and slightly more flat imagery, not information-heavy graphics — people like Dale Crosby Close, who did our Briefings, or Alice Mollon, who illustrated our fifth birthday pieces. The thing that unifies them is that they’re bright and get the point across despite their styles being different.
With photography it’s a bit more varied. Now we’re starting to do more cross-department stuff with Wellcome (the research charity that funds Mosaic), it opens it up in terms of budget and themes, so you can do a bit more reportage.
What’s your favourite Mosaic image?
There’s so many it’s hard to pick. We started off weekly and now we’re every other week, and every story has at least three pictures. That’s a lot of images.
This year I really like Ryan Chapman’s work for us. It sums up the way the Mosaic aesthetic has developed over time.
The images for our story about food banks are really nice as well. The piece tells the story of a woman who hadn’t eaten in days, and so her son gave her a glass of milk, so we photographed a glass of milk in a really beautiful way. It’s quiet, respectful and gets across the point of the story without meddling too much in the lives of those affected by food poverty.
Our current art director is Charlie Hall, who’s covering Peta while she’s away. To get in touch, email mosaic@wellcome.ac.uk introducing yourself and including a link to your portfolio.
To learn more about how Mosaic works, check out the rest of the posts in this series.
If you’d like to pitch to Mosaic, read our guidelines and drop us an email.
