The Science of Coral

Fictional illustration spread for Aquila magazine.

This is a self-initiated project, following a brief set by AQUILA magazine for the Make Your Mark Illustration Bootcamp course that I have been taking this year.

The brief was to create an illustration to accompany an article about the science of coral, for AQUILA's issue on Oceans that was published this summer 2025. The magazine's audience are children aged 8-14. Since they said their issue would be mostly blue, I decided to go with an alternative color palette of green, purple, yellow, orange and pink.

I researched specific corals and animal species from the Tubbataha reef in the Philippines and found out that the sea turtle is an important helper of corals. That’s why I imagined a human diver and sea turtle coming together to support the thriving of the coral ecosystem – literally holding baby corals on the turtle's shell.

On the right-hand page, the illustration features a scientific diagram of the coral's make-up (zoomed in with a magnifying glass) and references to the threats to corals (bleaching, overfishing, fish nets, anchors and even star fish, which eat corals!).

I had lots of fun researching coral species and the delicate balance of this ecosystem. Certain animals like sea turtles and whale sharks support the corals by eating animals that nibble on coral, like starfish. I wanted to centralize these symbiotic relationships in the spread whilst also introducing a human to this ecosystem, to show that we too can help this ecosystem thrive.

Lastly, I added some humorous elements like a farting parrot fish and a hungry whale shark to make the kids laugh!