Visual storytelling, information design and research communication.
Selected work ↓Selected case studies in editorial design, research communication and visual storytelling.
A visual exploration of plastic waste in Fiji, translating research, data and local context into a clear and engaging editorial narrative.
A visual storytelling project exploring hidden fishing activity and the challenge of making complex marine data easier to understand.
Translating research on farmed shrimp welfare into a clear visual narrative, using editorial design, illustration and information hierarchy to make complex findings more accessible and engaging.
Campaigns, concepts and image-led pieces exploring how a visual idea can carry a message quickly and emotionally.
Selected work ↓Selected campaigns, concepts and image-led work.
A social campaign concept built as a seven-frame Instagram carousel, using repetition, pacing and a single visual environment to tell a short story about the cycle of intensive egg production.
A six-frame social campaign concept translating a difficult animal-welfare issue into a direct visual narrative, moving from the practice itself to the case for making ablation-free production the standard.
A six-frame awareness campaign explaining why approaching a seal pup can cause its mother to stay away, turning a simple behaviour change into a short visual story with a clear call to action.
A six-frame visual campaign about coral bleaching and restoration, using a simple narrative arc to explain what corals are, why warming oceans threaten them, and why restoration efforts may only buy limited time.
Hi! My name is Maria, and I’m a visual designer with over 10 years of experience across editorial, digital, branding and e-commerce design.
I'm looking for a long-term role aligned with my purpose: to make others' lives better, and to make life itself better. And I'm looking for a place where I can put my heart in and where people's values are aligned with the values I deeply believe in: integrity, truth and love.
I’m deeply interested in visual storytelling and research communication, turning complex information into clear, engaging and meaningful visual narratives.
I’ve worked remotely for many years, often while living and travelling in different parts of the world. Photography has become a big part of the way I observe places, people and stories, and it naturally influences how I approach design.
If you think I could be a good fit for your team, I’d be happy to hear from you.
I hope you have a wonderful day!
Maria
A visual storytelling project translating research on farmed shrimp welfare into a clearer and more accessible narrative, using editorial design, illustration and information hierarchy to make complex findings easier to understand.
The research models each welfare threat across three dimensions: how many shrimp are affected, how long the harm lasts and how severe the pain is. These are translated into a common metric: disabling-equivalent pain.
The 18 welfare threats were organised into six groups — water quality, pond habitat, feed management, health, transport and end of production — to make the research easier to scan and compare.
The highest mean estimates come from conditions that affect many shrimp over long periods. Widespread, chronic harms can add up to greater overall suffering than more visible but shorter events.
Across hundreds of billions of farmed shrimp, individual harms can accumulate to an enormous total. At the same time, substantial uncertainty remains, and the evidence does not support confidently ranking most welfare threats.
An editorial redesign translating research on plastic waste, disposal and leakage in Fiji into a clearer and more approachable visual narrative.
The story begins by situating Fiji geographically, socially and economically, giving the reader enough context to understand the scale and conditions behind the data that follows.
The original research combines household, commercial, tourism and fisheries data with landfill checks and stakeholder interviews. I reorganised that methodology into a simpler sequence: imports, use, disposal and leakage.
The central data story compares how much plastic waste is generated across households, commercial activity, tourism and fisheries, helping the reader see both the overall scale and the differences between sectors.
Fisheries contribute only a small share of Fiji’s total plastic waste, but lost fishing gear and consumer plastics can leak directly into the marine environment. That contrast became an important part of the narrative.
The final summary distils the research into a small set of memorable figures, connecting total plastic waste, leakage by sector, tourism intensity and fishing gear leakage into one clear conclusion.
A visual storytelling project exploring hidden fishing activity and the challenge of making complex marine data easier to understand.
Public vessel tracking only shows part of the picture. This project explores how satellite data can reveal activity that conventional tracking systems may miss.
“Dark” does not automatically mean illegal. It simply means that public AIS data does not show the full picture.
Rather than treating AIS, optical imagery, SAR and VIIRS as isolated datasets, the narrative shows how each reveals a different layer of vessel activity at sea.
The visual hierarchy moves from what can be tracked to what remains unmatched, helping explain why hidden or unreported activity matters.
Making vessel activity easier to interpret can support fisheries management, marine protection, compliance and enforcement, as well as research and transparency.
Project introduction.
A concise explanation of the visual approach goes here.