Look at this beautiful art by Yuefeng Song.
What’s lovely about this is not just the illustration, but that it is Figure 6 in technical paper in an academic journal. It’s not done just for press releases or social media or some other more media to promote the paper. It is in the version of record, and that’s wild.
Academic journals are normally conservative and slightly staid.
It a little subversive to have an illustration that unabashedly embraces a Chinese artistic tradition in a British journal.
A recurring problem with posters is the sameness many have. One of the goals of this blog is to showcase new graphic design possibilities for posters. I’ve tried to think about how other cultures might approach posters – with different forms of writing and design traditions. (I spent a long time looking for a conference poster in any language besides English.)
And an illustration like the one above reminds me of how limited my own view is. Because even when I think about trying to push the envelope, I usually am thinking about doing so in a context of Western culture.
There is no reason that conference posters couldn’t embrace other artistic traditions than “modern Western realism.”
Well, I take that back. There are some reasons. People can be sensitive about using artistic styles when an artist or presenter does not belong to the culture that developed and uses that style. I suspect that people are more likely to complain about this when the imitation is done poorly and without respect than when it’s done with craft and care.
Hat tip to Natalia Jagielska. As Natalia notes, “‘Realism’ is a style. ... I do not understand the current aversion to different “styles” in scientific visual art.”
Reference
Qigao Jiangzuo et al. 2025. A new ecomorph of Nimravidae, and the early macrocarnivorous niche exploration in Carnivora. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 292(2059): 20251686. https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2025.1686
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