Wood to Sea Overview Diagram, showcasing the journey of wood from rivers, estuaries, and coastlines, out to the deep sea.
Playful illustration of cream oysters, navy mussels, and gold rockweed

Wood to Sea Infographics

Client: Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research

Role: Creative direction, graphic design, illustration

Overview

Commissioned through a PhD research program at the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research, this project called for a suite of scientific illustrations to visually support a global review paper on the ecological role of wood in marine environments. Designed for scientists, coastal managers, coastal stakeholders, and educators, the illustrations needed to strike a balance between scientific accuracy and visual accessibility, serving as reference tools for researchers and decision-makers alike.

Outcome

Five illustrated diagrams were created to visually communicate the ecological role of wood in aquatic ecosystems the ways human activity has disrupted these natural processes:

  • One master overview diagram traces the full journey of wood from forests through rivers, estuaries, and coastlines, out to the deep sea.

  • Four thematic sub-diagrams zoom into key processes: human interaction, ecological community effects, landscape change, and wood degradation. Each illustration shares a consistent base landscape while the foreground elements shift to reflect key themes.

To meet the needs of multiple language translations, the diagrams were numerically labelled, accompanied by descriptive text within the layout of the content document.

o Wood to Sea Overview Diagram, showcasing the journey of wood from rivers, estuaries, and coastlines, out to the deep sea.

Wood to sea overview

Playful illustration of cream oysters, navy mussels, and gold rockweed
Illustrated diagram of land and ocean cross-section, featuring a cityscape, heavy machinery, fishing, logging and agriculture
Illustrated orange crab

Human Interaction

Illustrated diagram of land and ocean cross-section, featuring wood degradation and the positive impacts on marine ecosystems
Illustrated blue and grey tuna fish

Ecological Community effects

Illustrated diagram of land and ocean cross-section, featuring a braided river, sand dunes, and sea floor with degraded wood.

Landscape Change

Illustrated diagram of land and ocean cross-section, featuring wood breaking down in rivers, floating at sea, and on the ocean floor.

Wood Degradation

"Trina was easy to work with; her opening questionnaire of my objectives quickly and clearly led to her determining goals, the target audience, main message, and styling of illustrations. This proved to be an efficient way to streamline workflow and output while illustrations remained true to the intended message throughout revision rounds."

Jon Dickson, PhD candidate Wadden Mosaic

Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research

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