Science blogging: The essential guide - Christie Wilcox, Bethany Brookshire, Jason G. Goldman 2016

Using science art and imagery in a blog

Glendon Mellow

Photos and art can bring a simple written piece to life. The best science communicators will work hard to ensure that they use artists’ work responsibly and with permissions. Glendon Mellow, science artist and blogger at Scientific American Blog Network, can tell you how to make sure that both writer and artist benefit.

The painting Science Chess was borne out of a tweet, proving that complex communication extends beyond the realm of prose. Nuanced ideas can be found in fewer than 140 characters—or even no characters at all. Human beings are visual, pattern-seeking, symbol-speaking animals, and our eyes can be captured in countless ways. An arresting image is an essential, enticing lede to a story, and it’s important to consider the potential impact such images may have.

“I’m thinking scientific accommodation of religion is akin to letting someone take your King’s Rook off the board because you’re winning.”—Science Chess © Glendon Mellow, oil on canvas paper, 2008.

In the case of Science Chess, a tweet led to the painting, which led to a blog post and a contest to identify the symbols in the painting. (The winner received a print of the image.) This series of events made me wonder which symbols were easiest for scientifically literate readers to identify, and why some were almost impossible. I wrote all of those thoughts out on my blog and a discussion ensued, one that emphasized how images can help shape our understanding of scientific ideas, with or without text.

Consider, for example, how:

• The viscera-free medical illustration of the respiratory system in a doctor’s office clarifies the complicated insides of our bodies

• The deceptive graphs used by climate-change denialists highlight brief cooling periods instead of the overpowering evidence toward warming

• The dominant feature of print magazine covers is the central image, not the stories within or even the magazine’s logo

• Feathered dinosaurs and exoplanets cannot be photographed, yet we still believe we know what they look like

• Mind-bending visual exercises are used effectively to depict the complicated world of quantum physics

Images are more than a frill

Visual communication has been around for thousands of years. We are visual beings. There’s a reason that in video games high-end graphics have won out over text-based adventures. It’s the same reason that apps consist of a symbol and splash of color instead of just text.

The Internet is the same. With faster and faster processing and delivery speeds, larger and crisper images are becoming the norm. Graphics I first optimized for speed and quality seven years ago on my SciArt blog now look terrible on my iPad. This trend is affecting all major social media sites.

As I write this, giant banners on Twitter are about a month old. Google+ and Flickr both support huge amounts of space to store hi-res images. Blog templates everywhere are copying the screen-wide images of Medium and SquareSpace.

We do not put up big images just because we can.

A June 2013 MIT News post reported a study by Stephanie Hatch that ranked posts on the MIT Facebook page.¹ She found that among the top twenty posts in a month in terms of user engagement, 70 percent had images. According to social media scientist Dan Zarella, inline images added to Twitter in 2013 were 94 percent more likely to get retweeted than tweets with a link to an Instagram image that you had to click to see.² Images aren’t just visuals, they actually increase the reach of your entire message.

The implication for blogs is that images can go a long way toward guiding people to your post and making sure it gets shared. They are not just pretty packaging; they are an effective means of communication that no blogger can afford to do without.

Think about the image you want

You’ve crafted a science blog post you’re proud about. What’s next?

Don’t just jazz it up with a random, tenuously related stock photo. Think about the type of image you want. Are you worried that the topic might seem boring at first glance, and readers may need to be enticed to stay with it until the end? Try fine art or concept art, both of which can be immediately intriguing and work well with editorial pieces. Need to reassure people that the thing they think is scary (sharks, vaccines, GMO-food) isn’t? Bust out cartoons and bright colors. Is your message serious? Skip the cartoons and go with some simple infographics, something meme-worthy to spread the message around.

Don’t undermine your own message. A post on the efficacy and importance of vaccines doesn’t gain anything with an image of a child crying while getting stabbed with a cold blue needle. The happy child talking to a doctor whose face we can actually see will be more effective at enhancing your message. You might think it’s funny to show a photoshopped square tomato, but to persuade people nervous about GMO-foods, consider wholesome, down-on-the-farm photos or that still life with a bowl of fruit from your art history class.

The sciArt movement

What if you can’t think of the perfect image? Where do you turn? There is a whole world of scientifically literate artists out there whose work is often described under the umbrella term “SciArt.” Find some science artists, and seek their advice.

Scientific literacy has been evident in the fine arts for a very long time. The Cubism of Picasso was arguably informed by the physics of a fourth spatial dimension. Seurat played with optics and a type of pixelation. The Garden of Earthly Delights by Hieronymus Bosch depicts fountains made from an alchemical distillation apparatus.

SciArt as a movement is growing, quickly and with complexity. Artists using traditional materials are increasingly choosing to depict science as a subject. Others are using the tools of science to create art. (Some in the subfield of bioart, for example, have used luminescent bacteria for screen printing.) What’s more, these artists are connected as never before, mainly through blogs and other social media tools, which have added visibility and volume to this emerging art form. Science matters, and SciArt will not let you ignore it.

What is sciArt?

First, a necessary digression about the taxonomy of that tricky word “art.” We’re talking about visual art, and even within those discussions there is a common misuse of the term “art.” If Art is the Kingdom, and Visual Art the Phylum, Fine Art is a Class. And yet often when people discuss “art” they mix up the large term Art with the smaller term Fine Art.

From Fine Art paintings to bioart, from medical illustration to paleontography, from cartoons to data visualization, scientifically literate visuals have never been more plentiful, varied, and easy to find than they are today.

For a tweet-length definition, SciArt is visual imagery that explains science, uses the tools of science, or demonstrates scientific literacy, often to provoke discussion.

Where to find sciart

This is not a comprehensive list, but here are some sites where you can find SciArt. Many of the artists are ready to discuss their work, and are easily approachable via Twitter, blog comments, or email. Perhaps you would like to use their work on your blog (with permission), or to commission something new. And who knows, perhaps your writing may be transformed by a partnership with an artist that lasts for many years. The partnership between writer Eric M. Johnson and illustrator Nathaniel Gold at The Primate Diaries is a fine example (http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/primate-diaries).

• Twitter hashtag: #sciart

• Art & Science Journal: http://www.artandsciencejournal.com

• ART Evolved: http://blogevolved.blogspot.ca

• Art.Science.Gallery: http://www.artsciencegallery.com

• ArtPlantae Today: http://artplantaetoday.com

• Association of Medical Illustrators: http://ami.org

• The Finch & Pea: http://thefinchandpea.com

• Guild of Natural Science Illustrators: http://www.gnsi.org

• Mad Art Lab: http://madartlab.com

• Morbid Anatomy: http://morbidanatomy.blogspot.ca

• Phylo, the trading card game: http://phylogame.org

• PhyloPic: http://phylopic.org

• SciArt in America: http://www.sciartinamerica.com

• Science Artists RSS Feed: http://friendfeed.com/scienceartists

• ScienceArt Community on Google+: https://plus.google.com/communities/113301495673079979034

• Southern Ontario Nature & Science Illustrators: http://sonsi.ca

• Street Anatomy: http://streetanatomy.com

• Symbiartic: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/symbiartic

The not-so-scary world of copyright

Most bloggers initially hear about copyright when they hear that someone has violated it. Copyright for images varies a little country by country, and with people talking about open copyright, Creative Commons Licenses, GNU licenses, and cases of litigation, it can all seem overwhelming. But for a science writer, it’s not so bad. It all comes down to citing sources.

If you see an image that would be just perfect for your blog post, remember that you can reach someone on the other side of the planet more easily than ever before. Make contact on Twitter or a blog comment or via their page on DeviantArt, an online social community for artists. Try email for a formal touch. Simply explain why you think the image is effective and how you would love to include it on your blog post for outreach or education. See what happens. Getting permission directly from the artist is the best and easiest way to use amazing images on your post.

Why not make your own images? This one was made using an iPhone 4 with the Manga Camera app to simplify a photo, and the Halftone app to add captions. Image © Glendon Mellow.

The next step is to cite your source. You wouldn’t dream of presenting a scientific study without referring to the paper, so make sure you credit the artist with “©Artist’s Name.” Link it back to that person’s primary online portfolio, preferably in the caption below the image or somewhere else nearby.

Do not offer “exposure” to the artist as a form of payment. He or she is on the Internet and has the same chances for exposure that you do. Getting paid in exposure is frequently and cynically joked about by artists and illustrators. See @forexposure_txt on Twitter if you need to be humbled. But of course, many beginning bloggers don’t have money. Just be up front about it. Try something like, “I do not have a budget on this project to offer you money, but I think it would fit our post perfectly. If we have your permission, what link would you like me to include on the attribution?” While pretty much all artists expect compensation for new work, many will happily allow their past work to be reused on a blog post.

Sometimes, despite your best efforts, you won’t be able to reach the person behind the perfect image. In these cases, learn how to refine a Google Image Search. You can choose to search only works with a Creative Commons License (CCL), and many sites, such as Flickr and DeviantArt, will tell you right on the page whether the work is under CCL. There are a number of different Creative Commons licenses, so make sure you’re abiding by the artist’s terms. All Creative Commons terms require citing the artist as a source and suggest that doing so with a link is best.

If you find the right image via Wikipedia or Google Image Search, do not cite the source as “Image: Wikipedia” even with a link. Click through on Wikipedia or Google and look at who uploaded the image. Often that is who you should credit, though if it is a photo of, say, a painting by da Vinci located in the Prado, you should simply link back to the upload page on Wikipedia but write “Image by da Vinci, Prado Gallery.” Clarity is the most important rule.

These guidelines are important to follow for reasons beyond simple responsibility. The tools that artists use to police their own work are growing (including Google Search by Image and Tineye), and, as noted above, the world of science artists is becoming more organized and tightly knit. I can think of a few examples over the past several years where a blogger used multiple pieces of an artist’s work and cited only “Image via Google” (or even worse, cropped out the artist’s signature or watermark). The result was swift justice. Artists will first ask nicely for the oversight to be corrected. If this has no effect, they will ask other artists to help flood comment pages or make complaints to ISP or site hosts until the errors are fixed. Science communication is a small field, and chances are the people most interested in your post will be able to recognize your sources, even if improperly credited.

The formula is simple: get permission, and cite the artist with his or her name and a meaningful link.

How to share your own images online

This chapter was written primarily for science communicators who do not necessarily identify themselves as artists. But there is a growing and rich world of science bloggers who communicate visually. Here are a few best practices for using your own images online in the service of science communication:

• Watermarks—use your URL, preferably if it has your name in it, but don’t make it huge or obscuring.

• Get comfortable with reverse image search tools, which will help you to keep an eye on any of your work that’s going viral and has your name cropped off.

• Build your network. Your blogroll, sites you comment on, and whom you follow on Twitter should include potential clients as well as other artists. Not for a hard sell, but to forge friendships and meaningful connections. The same connections can sometimes alert you to infringements on your work.

• Forget separating the art from the artist. Your voice identifies you as much as your artwork does.

• Let people share your work with attribution. Don’t worry about re-posting older work. There is always someone new who hasn’t seen it.

• Be professional. Use agreements when making new work and have a plan.

Imagery of all kinds has a place in science communication and on blogs. Be proud of what you have to offer.

Glendon Mellow is a fine artist and illustrator. His artwork is featured in science blogs, magazines, books, and exhibits. He also gives talks about social media, art promotion, and the growing field of SciArt. He writes the blog The Flying Trilobite and is part of Symbiartic, on the Scientific American Blog Networks.

Glendon is based in Toronto. Find him on his website, www.glendonmellow.com, or follow him on Twitter, @FlyingTrilobite.

Notes

1. Robyn Fizz, “The Big Picture: Using Images in Social Media,” MIT News, June 11, 2013, http://newsoffice.mit.edu/2013/the-big-picture-using-images-in-social-media.

2. Dan Zarella, “Using Images to Get More Retweets,” DanZarella.com, October 7, 2013, http://danzarrella.com/use-images-on-twitter-to-get-more-retweets.html.