Humanity has never reached such a level of economic development and technological sophistication before – we have super fast vehicles and all kinds of appliances and gadgets that make our daily life easier.
At the same time, the economic growth of the past few decades has dramatically changed the look of our planet. The areas that were covered with dense forests just 30 years ago are now turned into lifeless realms of concrete and asphalt. So what’s the point in having all this progress, if we are destroying our home planet for the sake of it?
To address these issues, designers at the Indian branch of the advertising industry giant McCann World Group recently created a series of posters which bears the slogan “Bring Back the Balance.” The series conveys the idea that human impact on nature has led to the disproportion in the conditional state of the environment.
These incredibly detailed drawings depict the Earth as the well-known Chinese yin-yang symbol, which represents balance and duality. Using this allegory, the designers demonstrate how the ‘white’ part of the planet, which symbolizes untouched nature and greenery, has almost disappeared under the dark shadow of pollution and urbanization. The series includes three posters, one for each sphere of Earth – land, water, and air.
Land
Water
Air
Dalip Singh, a Creative Director with McCann Worldgroup, told Bored Panda:
“The symbol describes the state of balance between two opposites with a little bit in each. I wanted to explore this irony that exists between the symbol and the present state of environment.”
The campaign was extremely time-consuming and it took around 9 months for the design team to create, paint and retouch the drawings. The original designs were hand drawn on wall-sized sheets, which made it possible to reach such a level of detail. Then, the illustrations were painted with watercolors, photographed and digitalized.
Sometimes, a visual depiction of an issue helps send a powerful message about the current situation. Let’s hope that these drawings will help raise the awareness of the environmental problems.
Image credit: McCann World Group
This article (Incredibly Detailed Drawings Show the Ugly Truth of What We’ve Done to Mother Earth) is free and open source. You have permission to republish this article under a Creative Commons license with attribution to The Mind Unleashed.
