Skip to content
Back to portfolio

Oriano, a seagrass monitoring guide

A scientific protocol turned into a field comic

Monitoring a seagrass meadow calls for precise gestures, repeated identically from one campaign to the next. The international Seagrass-Watch protocol describes them, in a technical document field teams rarely opened.

Oriano follows a character learning the gestures one by one. The reader sees the quadrat placed, the measurement taken, the sheet filled in. What was a written instruction becomes an observable gesture, and therefore a repeatable one.

Protocol adaptation and rewriting: Beva Grilante. Script, illustrations and colouring: Anitah Benah, Illustreo.

Client
Mada Seagrass
Year
2026
Role
Script, illustrations, colouring
Service
Tailored scientific visuals

Behind the scenes

The creation steps

A scientific commission is not drawn in one go. Here are the real steps of this project, including the ones that produce no image at all.

  1. 01

    Start from the protocol

    The guide adapts the international Seagrass-Watch protocol for local communities. Before any sketch, you have to know which gestures to show, in which order, and with which words for readers who are not scientists.

  2. 02

    First draft

    A first breakdown, in light lines on a dark ground. The text is only placeholders at this point: the aim is to place the characters, frame the cover and order the panels.

  3. 03

    Sketches with the text

    Dialogue and captions go into the panels, the credits find their place. This is when the scientific text gets reviewed: a speech bubble takes a minute to fix, a coloured plate takes a day.

  4. 04

    Colour

    Colour comes once the breakdown is approved. The lagoon, the sand and the meadow keep hues close to reality, so readers recognise their own coastline.

  5. 05

    Deliver the guide

    Title, credits, partner logos and closing page: the guide is delivered as a finished object, ready to pass between field teams.