Water is pretty much all-pervasive in our culture, we even see it in the stars:
Aquarius
Tags: water
January 12, 2010
2
Clean water
By Philip in 365 DesignsBecause clean water is so important, it’s a good thing we all have access to it.
Clean water
January 11, 2010
2
Week 2 – Water
By Philip in 365 DesignsWelcome to the beginning of a new week, and a new theme: water. You all know and love it, but this week I’ll be exploring the ins and outs of water, and what it means to us. To start with, just to show how important water is to us:
Water
Yes, every single living creature depends on water. Join me this week for a wonderful watery journey.
Tags: water
January 10, 2010
1
little spheres
By Philip in 365 DesignsOk. The end of the essential elements theme, look back over the past seven days to see what I’ve been up to. Today I’ve pulled together the theme for the whole week into one piece that I think does a good job of communicating one of the central ideas here: we’re just made up of little balls stuck together:
little spheres
I’m pretty happy with this as an experiment with layout and type.
Now, a quick reflection on the last week: Wow, I’ve had much less time to do these than I’d have liked, and in the last few days the quality certainly suffered, I’m not so happy with the way calcium and oxygen turned out in particular, neither of them were particularly well concepted, and that shows. That said, I’m really happy with the way carbon and hydrogen work, in particular carbon, I feel the structure is pretty sucessful. Lessons for the next week: better something small and well-formed than something ambitious and half-baked. Sketch things out on paper first! It saves time and makes you think.
Finally, thanks to everyone who has commented, I look forward to hearing more from you guys!
January 9, 2010
2
Sulphur
By Philip in 365 DesignsIt’s time for another essential element. Today we’re looking at sulphur. Sulphur is bright lemon-yellow, and is the chemical that gives rotten eggs their smell. In fact, sulphur is also known as brimstone: the brimstone from ‘fire and brimstone’, which evokes images of volcanoes and otherwise hellish scenery. So what’s so important about sulphur? It’s one of the essential trace elements: a building block of many biologically important proteins, and particularly helps your cells to utilise oxygen. In crystal form it has a striking appearance, and when it melts, it turns blood-red. Anyway, here is a bright yellow lump of sulphur:
Sulphur
Tags: elements
January 8, 2010
3
Oxygen
By Philip in 365 DesignsYes, oxygen. Pretty much everything important in your body contains oxygen as a fundamental building block. It’s essential to the way life has evolved on earth: only very few creatures (some bacteria basically) can survive in an anaerobic (no oxygen) environment. Oxygen is very reactive, so earth is unusual in having pure oxygen (O2) in the atmosphere. In the upper atmosphere, oxygen is found as ozone (O3) in the ozone layer, although ozone is poisonous to life, in the atmosphere it forms a barrier, protecting the earth’s surface from harmful UV rays.
Apart from playing a part in the structure of our bodies, the most important function of oxygen is to help us respire: we take in oxygen through our lungs, and use it to turn glucose into energy, thus powering our entire body. Without it, our bodies wouldn’t function. But you already knew that:
Oxygen
If I’m perfectly honest, I’m not that happy with this one, nor yesterday’s for that matter. I predict improvement however.
Tags: elements
January 7, 2010
2
Calcium
By Philip in 365 DesignsCalcium is an abundant mineral, the fifth most common element on the planet, and is essential for proper cell function. In humans, calcium helps your muscles move, and helps your heart saty functional. Most importantly though, 99% of the calcium (Ca) in your body is in your teeth and bones:
Calcium
Calcium is also important in many animals as shell and bone structures, and is an important micronutrient for all animals.
January 6, 2010
2
Nitrogen
By Philip in 365 DesignsNitrogen is essential to all life on earth. It is a fundamental building block of amino acids and thus of DNA. I wanted to take a look at a particularly important aspect of nitrogen today: as it is necessary for plant life, it is a primary constituent of fertilisers used to grow most of the food we eat. I had very little time in front of the computer today, so the following is a double page from my notebook I sketched on the train.
Nitrogen
So rejoice, because nitrogen puts food on your plate.
January 5, 2010
13
Hydrogen
By Philip in 365 DesignsDay two in my essential elements series: hydrogen. Hydrogen is the lightest, most elementary element: sort of the lego brick from which every other atom is built. It is also the most abundant, 75% of the total of all stuff* in the universe, and is the power source of the sun, when combined with oxygen it is humble H2O. Sunlight, water, 75% of existence. You don’t get more essential than that.
Hydrogen
After yesterday’s clean, structured design, I wanted to do some practice in blend modes in photoshop. This was quite time consuming as I was experimenting with lots of layers and effects. It was in part an attempt to see if I could produce something in the style of James White, and in particular, this image. Overall, for a preliminary effort I’m pretty pleased with how it turned out, although with more time there could definitely be more subtlety in the layering/blending.
Note for science-inclined, and those who are interested: the pink/red colour is the colour of the most prominent emission line of hydrogen H II. This is why on pictures of galaxies and nebulae you often see these shades, huge clouds of hydrogen emitting light of this colour. Even if you aren’t science inclined, it’s worth taking a look at the public domain images from NASA and ESA, like this stunning picture of the Orion Nebula taken by the Hubble space telescope:
The Orion Nebula
Original, and more, here.
*disclaimer: not including dark matter, it’s 75% of the elemental matter.