A day in the life of a scientific illustrator at Vivid Biology

I studied natural sciences at the University of Cambridge, first at BA level and then MSci. Initially I'd wanted to study maths but I was told I'd be unlikely to get a place if I did defer entry (I was determined to do an art foundation course). I picked the natural sciences course because you could choose modules from across the sciences rather than focusing early on. I wasn't sure what direction I wanted to go in but I was very keen on maths, genetics and organic chemistry. A lot of the exciting emerging sciences like synthetic biology didn't have an obvious degree to pick so I thought it was best to choose something broad and specialize later on. It was hard finding much maths–biology overlap after first year. Luckily, by the time I got to my final year, they'd just started an MSci course in systems biology, which involved applying computational skills to biochemistry and genetics.

I did an art foundation course before starting my science degree. I was under no illusions about being the best scientist on the course, but I figured I could probably have the best lab drawings and diagrams. In my fourth year, I did a short placement with the science illustration and animation company Equinox Graphics, and that was the first point at which I realized that science illustration could be a career. Equinox specializes in 3D rendering, so I did a lot of freehand concept sketching for biology research projects.

When I graduated, I decided to try being a freelance illustrator and graphic designer (with some science tutoring on the side). I quickly realized that I missed using my degree, and I liked explaining science, so I tried to focus on doing illustration and design work for science clients. This was quite hard to find at first as I didn't have a lot of science illustration in my portfolio – most of my previous work had been theatre posters or student journalism. My first big break was being asked to redesign the seminar series posters for the Gurdon Institute, where I'd done my MSci project. My MSci research project supervisor was also organizing a meeting at the Royal Society, so he needed a poster and journal cover. After about two years of freelancing in London, I received a six month scholarship to the Royal Drawing School. While I was there I got involved with some large-scale projects with Mendeley and Pint of Science’s Creative Reactions. I started to feel like science illustration could actually become my main job, and in 2015 I decided to move from London to Bristol (where the rent was cheaper) to go full time with science illustration under the name Vivid Biology.

Often I'm working for clients who are on a completely different time zone, so I'll check my emails first thing to see if anything has come up overnight. I have a database of existing client projects and related tasks, which helps me decide which tasks need working on first. Agency clients requesting redraws for manuscript or slideshow figures often expect first drafts within a few days and revisions within 24 hours. More creative and complex projects like animations or large format illustrations tend to take a few months to complete and have multiple stages. To start an illustration, I'll usually read a research article or script, and then start sketching some ideas. I use a Remarkable tablet for reading, writing and sketching. It usually takes a few rounds of sketching ideas until a client agrees on a concept for an illustration.

I usually draw the final illustration on multiple sheets of A4 Bristol board – I find it much easier to add detail using ink pens than by drawing on a tablet. The size I draw at depends on how close the viewer is going to be to the illustration. I'll draw artwork for journals and magazines at a larger size to add more detail, and if I'm doing large format work for a mural or exhibition backdrop where viewers are standing a metre or so away, I'll usually draw at smaller than the final size. Once I'm happy with the illustration I'll scan the A4 sheets and then knit them together into a seamless illustration in Photoshop. Once the client is happy with the line art. I'll do all the colouring on the computer. I like doing it this way because it means I've got an ink drawing on paper at the end of it as well as a final digital artwork.

You need a mix of design, marketing and administrative skills. I'm fortunate that I quite enjoy the administrative side as well as the design side (other friends hate it). We have accountants to prepare our annual reports, but I do all the day-to-day bookkeeping in the software Xero. There can be quite a lot of it as we also sell products online (there’re inventory value calculations, and lots of microtransactions from platforms like Etsy and Shopify to import). When it comes to marketing, I've always done my own websites, although I know that advertising is something I need to work harder at. It’s very easy to spend lots of money on social media ads and think 'job done', but it doesn't usually get results.

On the technical design side of things, you really need to understand at least one vector editing, one image editing and one animation programme. They don't all have to be Adobe, although I'd recommend Adobe Illustrator at a minimum, as larger companies and agencies often expect you to send them Illustrator files. Adobe Photoshop may not be necessary unless you're dealing with very large files; any programme that can handle layers and clean up scanned line art is probably going to be fine. For animation, it really depends what kind of format the client wants, and we use different programmes depending on whether it’s going to be a short looping animation or a movie that gets played. Often the simplest solution is just a sequence of frames on Microsoft PowerPoint.

In terms of science and creativity skills, it’s important to be able to read a research paper in enough detail to get the gist of the research, without going into so much detail that you get bogged down by the methods (unless the client wants to emphasize the methods). You then have to come up with some ideas for how to represent the key concept visually. This has to be familiar enough that people will know what topic it is, but original enough that people give it more than a glance. A lot of posters will use a photograph or microscope image, which from a distance looks like a black box, so using negative space in an illustration is a really good way to stand out from a distance. It’s best to try and focus on two key topic areas and come up with an original composition, than to try and do three or more and feel obliged to fill in the background with all the visual keywords.

I really enjoy working on large format illustrations. Often there’s a long concept phase where you get to sketch at lot of different ideas. The inking phase is usually more enjoyable too as you might have 10 or more drawings, and unlike smaller illustrations, making a small mistake isn't going to completely ruin the composition.

Illustration is as much about finding ways to reuse your back catalogue as it is about making new work. Clients are granted a licence to use our work, but we still own the copyright. We work with a media agency who licences our work for textbooks or news articles (who wouldn't have the time or budget to commission something new). We also run a store called Boutique Science that sells art prints and clothing with our designs on – dresses and shirts with DNA and cells on are very popular for conferences, graduations and PhD defences.

Trying to get a consistent stream of work can be a challenge. Last year, there was a market downturn and one of our biggest clients decided to do most of their design work in-house instead of relying on our outside help. We spent a lot on an advertising spot in a portfolio directory to try and find new clients, but it didn't yield results in time, and we ended up doing about half as much work as the year before.

There’s a lot of cultural baggage that comes with straddling the arts–sciences divide – most people assume that you can't be good at both of them. Often clients will assume that I have a design background and are surprised that I studied science and can understand a research article. Sometimes I wonder if it’s worth doing a PhD for a bit more academic credibility.

A year or two ago, we finished 1200 line drawings for Oxford University Press. These were used to make chapter summary animations for their new undergraduate biology textbook. This covered the whole undergraduate biology syllabus so we had to do quite a bit of reading on areas outside our expertise (ecology theory comes to mind). It was also a really good project to get our interns involved in as each animation needed a storyboard. Often we'd both do our own versions of the storyboard and the editor we were collaborating with would pick a mixture of concepts from both.

The single most important thing is to have a portfolio of relevant work that’s easily viewable online. Most clients who commission you will be scientists and won't know about training courses, certifications or software. They'll want to see what you've done for previous clients and how you solve design problems. Your portfolio doesn't have to be paid client work; it could be figures created for a thesis or academic poster. The next most important thing is to learn the software (such as Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator). You can usually get steep discounts on it while you're a student, and often university IT or Creative Arts department will provide free introductory courses.

If I had to pick one thing, make sure that you have a support network of other business owners whose advice and experience you can access. There are quite a few free business accelerator programmes that provide mentoring and business coaching. They also plug you into a network of other small business owners and often offer free workspace. I attended the Entrepreneurial Spark Natwest accelerator programme for 6 months, which was really good, and I'm still applying things I learned on it 8 years later.

I'd like to work on something in visual science communication that has the ability to improve communication at a larger scale. As a designer you're always limited by the number of hours you have available to design. Perhaps writing a book on best practice, working on a scientific notation system like SBOL Visual, or developing design software like BioRender.

Recently I've been asked whether generative Al is going to steal my job (usually by software engineers!). I often use image generation AI Midjourney to generate references when I need to sketch people in a design as there’s no risk of it being an identifiable person, but so far every time I've asked it to draw anything involving DNA it’s given me a triple-stranded helix or some other aberration. Maybe it will get smarter in the future though!