To start the year, I illustrated and designed a calendar titled “The Big Ones”, with the intention of wishing everyone a big year ahead. The calendar features some of the largest known species in the animal kingdom (aka megafauna) and was created as a gift for family and friends.
The best part of this personal project was the research phase—finding out which animals fall into this category. I spent several weeks collecting visual references to study their anatomy and develop a consistent graphic direction that could unify all the illustrations. From these studies, I built a shared color palette that could be applied throughout the calendar, making it visually cohesive and pleasant to look at—especially since it was also intended to work as an educational tool for my friends’ children.
*Megafauna—referring to the largest mammals and birds—are species with long lifespans, slow population growth, low mortality rates, and (for the largest of them) few or no natural predators capable of killing adults. These characteristics, although not exclusive to megafauna, make them particularly vulnerable to human overexploitation, in part due to their slow population recovery rates.
