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Project

SSWAN (Sustainable Solutions for Water and Nature)

Client

The Rivers Trust + RSPB + The Wildlife Trusts + Sustainability First + Wessex Water

Vision

To align economic and environmental regulation and make the biggest structural reform of our water system in a generation

SSWAN is a partnership of organisations who share the same goal: to find sustainable solutions for water and nature.

They advocate a catchment-based, holistic approach to managing our water courses, putting the emphasis on nature-based and low carbon solutions to benefit water, nature and society as a whole.

I was briefed to create two illustrations to highlight the proposed approaches for both rural and urban catchment areas, and demonstrate the difference between continuing with current systems compared to the positive impact that could be achieved with water companies and nature-based organisations working in partnership.

These illustrations feature in SSWAN’s proposals and are being used on the SSWAN website, as well as in print materials to encourage and collect feedback on the potential new ways of working – putting nature first.

Detailed illustration of rural water catchment area showing sustainable solutions for water and nature
Detailed illustration of urban water catchment area showing sustainable solutions for water and nature

Each theoretical catchment area has a river running through it.

Left of the river shows how things look if we carry on with current systems, and the right shows the positive impacts of integrating nature-focussed solutions.

Detailed illustration of rural water catchment area showing sustainable solutions for water and nature
Detailed illustration of urban water catchment area showing sustainable solutions for water and nature

For added flexibility

Individual nature elements were extracted from the main illustrations for the client to use separately as needed, across print and presentation materials.

Big set of nature elements, wildlife and plantlife from illustrations of rural and urban water catchment areas showing sustainable solutions for water and nature

Process

The initial sketch stage included a full composition layout for each illustration and individual sketches of the nature and plantlife elements.

Sketches for Detailed illustrations of rural and urban water catchment areas showing sustainable solutions for water and nature
Sketches of wildlife and plantlife for nature based illustration
Sketches of wildlife and plantlife for nature based illustration
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