Illuminating science since 2003
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Illustration and Infographics

A selection of infographics designed by Oliver

ILLUSTRATION

Magazine covers

For the cover of the 26 March 2026 issue of Nature, I drew a human and their canine companion admiring the northern lights near a settlement in Ice Age Switzerland. Dogs have been companions for humans for millennia, but the exact origins and nature of early dogs remain a mystery. New research reveals that they diversified and spread across Eurasia far earlier than had previously been thought.

For the cover of the 2 January 2025 issue of Nature, I illustrated the research of Leo Speidel, Pontus Skoglund and colleagues, which allows subtle differences in ancestry to be reconstructed in high resolution. The researchers use their technique to examine the genomic history of early medieval Europe, including ancestry expanding into Scandinavia before the Viking Age. The cover is inspired by the serpentine carvings found on Viking Age runestones and features the Elder Futhark runes for the DNA nucleotides A, T, G and C (K).

For the cover of the 26 August 2022 issue of Science, I illustrated the groundbreaking research of geneticists David Reich and Iosif Lazaridis. My image, inspired by Bronze Age art, depicts people of five cultures spreading their genes between West Asia and Southeast Europe (from left to right: Mycenaean, Minoan, Hittite, Armenian, and Urartian). The researchers analyzed a total of 1317 ancient genomes spanning 10,000 years to reveal connections between these regions that are invisible in modern DNA.

For the cover of the 4 August 2023, issue of Science, I illustrated the research of Éadaoin Harney and her collaborators on the DNA from 27 African Americans buried at Catoctin Furnace, Maryland, where enslaved people labored between 1774 and 1850. The tree trunk forms a double helix comprising 27 segments representing each sequenced individual. Chromosome-shaped leaves signify their 41,799 detected modern relatives. At the roots I drew the names of 271 enslaved Catoctin Furnace workers.

For the cover of the 30 March 2023 issue of Nature, I illustrated the archaeogenetic research of Chapurukha Kusimba, Esther Brielle, Stephanie Wynne-Jones, Jeffrey Fleisher, and David Reich. Inspired by an 1896 photo of a Swahili woman, I redrew her clothing patterns to depict the meeting and mixing of Persian and African peoples along the Swahili coast circa 1000 AD.

Select editorial work


MAPS & GRAPHICS

Selections from Atlas of Finance (2024)


Selections from Atlas of the Invisible (2021)

 
Animation of selected infographics from Atlas of the Invisible.
 

Selections from London: The Information Capital (2014)


Selections from a set of 11 new waysides for the Pierce Stocking Scenic Drive in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore. (2017)