Brief

The Millennium Seed Bank, nestled in the East Sussex countryside, is home to over 2.4 billion seeds from more than 40,000 different plant species. With the ultimate goal of insuring against the extinction of plant species in the future, the seedbank helps safeguard wild plant diversity and supplies seeds in vital regeneration programmes following natural disasters.

These unassuming looking buildings house sub-zero storage vault chambers, host world-class laboratories specialising in seed biology, and could be described as one of the most biodiverse places on earth.

The atrium visitor area of the Millennium Seed Bank hosted an exhibition named ‘Secret Structures’, featuring the inner workings of seeds and funghi viewed at high magnification, for which Izabelle May was commissioned to create graphic design layouts.

Design

The Secret Structures exhibition showcased the wonder of seeds shown in extreme macro photography, taken through powerful microscopes and enhancing details not visible to the naked eye.

Scanned using a CT scanner loaned from the Natural History Museum, the extraodinary black & white source images were initially digitally manipulated to add colour treatment, noise reduction and made suitable for large format printing.

Keeping on-brand with RBG Kew typographic treatment, the text was integrated into the imagery to suggest 3D letterforms placed within the structures. Layout designs were then made across multiple touchpoints; a series of leaflets, digital assests, posters, accompanying wayfinding signage and building exterior graphics were created for the exhibition. All inviting visitors to digitally peel back the layers of each seed object, revealing the hidden structures that lie beneath.

Skills

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