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We Love Science is closing out 2023 with another spectacular interview. In this episode we speak with Dr. Laura Canil, a freelance scientific illustrator with her own company, CanilVisuals. As a scientific illustrator, Laura takes on a variety of projects like creating figures to accompany journal articles, crafting catchy covers for journals, producing original scientific comic strips, and guiding others who need advice in developing their own beautiful and engaging designs. After receiving her Ph.D. in physics, Laura took some time off to plan her transition as a freelance scientific illustrator. There was a lot of fear and excitement during this time in starting her own company, but she took the jump and really enjoys her work creating visuals to accompany groundbreaking research. Laura also found a lot of support in the beginning from friends and colleagues she met during graduate school. Her network served as a receptive audience for constructive criticism during her early days testing the waters as an illustrator. For practice, Laura would select papers from people she knew and designed journal covers and other illustrations to accompany their research publications. This provided her with constructive feedback as she perfected her craft and built her portfolio to move on to the next step of reaching out to new clients. “It’s easier when you really like something because then you have all the motivation to go through the hard parts,” she explains.
Tune into this episode to hear Laura share her perspective on:
- Living and working outside of her home country
- Transitioning into a freelance career from graduate school
- Developing new skills to become a scientific illustrator
- Advice for those looking to take the jump
Reach out to Laura:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-canil-8a203819b/
X (formerly Twitter): @laura_canil
More about CanilVisuals:
https://www.canilvisuals.com/
If you enjoyed hearing about Laura’s work, you might also enjoy:
Ep 32: We Love Birds Too!
Ep 20: Who Should Art Represent - The Work
Ep 8: The Pen is Mightier than the Pipette - The Work
Reach out to Fatu:
www.linkedin.com/in/fatubm
Twitter: @thee_fatu_b
and LoveSciencePodcast@gmail.com
Reach out to Shekerah:
www.linkedin.com/in/shekerah-primus
and LoveSciencePodcast@gmail.com
Music from Pixabay: Future Artificial Intelligence Technology 130 by TimMoor
Music from https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott_Holmes: Hotshot by ScottHolmesMusic
Fatu Badiane Markey 0:22
Hello everybody and welcome to the show if you're a first time listener and welcome back if you have been listening for some time, this is We Love Science and my name is Fatu
Shekerah Primus 0:34
and I'm Shekerah, and today we're learning about scientific illustration and science communication.
Fatu Badiane Markey 0:42
Yes, we are and joining us today is Laura Canil. A freelance scientific illustrator with Canil Visuals. Laura translates science into engaging 3D and 2D visuals. And her portfolio includes amazing projects like journal and thesis covers, graphical abstracts, infographics, animations, all the amazing things. So Laura, thank you for joining us today.
Laura Canil 1:09
Thank you for having me
Fatu Badiane Markey 1:09
We're really looking forward to hearing more about your work and your career journey. But before we jump in, we would like to warm up by talking about one of our favorite things. Which is food, the easiest thing to talk about.
Today's topic is going to be snack foods. So what are your favorite snacks when you just need something to like munch on? And do you prefer sweet or salty snacks? And Laura do you want to get us started?
Laura Canil 1:39
So well, I definitely prefer salty in general.
Actually, the thing is, I don't even know if it can be considered a snack, is cheese like
I usally have some selection of snacking cheese.
Fatu Badiane Markey 2:09
Sounds fancy, right? It's like a fancy snack.
What is your favorite snacking cheese?
Laura Canil 2:20
I don't think I have a favorite one because I like to change normally.
I like young cheeses over more aged ones; I like to alternate. If I get some condiments. It's good to have it with some something sweet like honey or some jam
Fatu Badiane Markey 2:41
Laura you know how to snack! I feel like I need to come over to your place.
This is why we will always start our conversations with food.
Shekerah Primus 2:55
Yeah my snacking game definitely is not as top notch
I'm a simple girl, just a chocolate chip cookie for me. Pretty standard. Yeah, I prefer I have a sweet tooth sure so I prefer sweet to salty.
Fatu Badiane Markey 3:16
I like a combination of both. And what I've been doing recently is making popcorn at home. And then like I make the popcorn salty. I'll add something sweet to it like you know like toasted nuts or like I love dried fruit. Or like I'll do like dried fruit in there. And it just it feels kind of healthy
It's a beautiful balance of salty popcorn and the sweet dried fruit or like the nuts and for me, that's just like, fantastic. So I like that. I've tried to do cheese on popcorn and I haven't gotten it to work exactly the way I want. So I'm gonna I'm gonna keep experimenting.
Alright. So let's jump in. So Laura, as I mentioned, you're a scientific illustrator and you work on a variety of projects, from journal covers to animations to poster presentations to everything in between. But you started out in academia, you have your master's and doctorate in physics, and then you transitioned to start your own company, Canil Visuals. So we're going to start with the work segment of the conversation. So this is where we talk about what you do now and why you love what you do and you know what you love about it. So let's start with the basics. What does a scientific illustrator do?
Laura Canil 4:41
I mean, as you mentioned a bit already it's merely illustration, but with the science topic. So it can be really a lot of things.
It's, it's a lot of journal covers, for example, that's something I do a lot. A lot of figures for papers or for grant applications.
Normally for figures for grants application for papers, in this case is a more kind of schematic figures.
In principle, figures can be more artistic or a bit more schematic depending on the purpose. Like the covers were more more on the artistic side; figures for papers or grants are a little bit more schematic; and these are two big ideas I get requests for over and over.
But it can be also completely kind of random things like I did a comic strip, once for like about a scientific paper, but it was different from other work I did before and I actually really enjoyed it.
Also the background for an exhibition booth, for example.
Like for research institutes, it can be also logos, infographics, posters. Sometimes it's also helping in designing something; so a person doesn't necessarily want to have one figure completely made by me but wants help in like the composition of how the imagery looks or a presentation, like it doesn't look too cluttered or things so that it looks better and the message is passed.
Yeah, I mean, I could, in principle, it could be also illustrations for books, I don't know.
Anything.
Something related to science, and often the visual presentation of it.
I'm also really looking forward getting these different kinds of projects. Maybe things I never thought about because they're challenging, and very interesting.
Fatu Badiane Markey 6:54
I agree. And I think I guess that's also part of what makes your work very exciting. It's like there's, you're always learning something new. You're always doing something new, right? You're always kind of applying your skills in like new ways. And that kind of I guess also keeps some of like the challenge but also makes it exciting right?
Shekerah Primus 7:14
That's pretty cool.
Fatu Badiane Markey 7:16
So you took some time off to start Canil Visuals. So can you speak about what it was like starting your own company? I know there was like some excitement and also some fear, but the excitement it was like you know like the dominating kind of emotion that you had.
And then also, how do you find assignments for, for your work, or like different projects, for what you focus on?
Laura Canil 7:37
Yeah, so I mean, in the time I took off, and then I really started basically; I had some online courses about the software I wanted to learn like Blender, Illustrator, Photoshop, things like this.
So at first I did these courses and practiced during the courses.
Then I started to practice on my own just by picking random papers from people I knew. So at least the useful thing is because I did a PhD then I had a big scientific network. So I guess I started to just look what my colleagues or friends also from different fields would do and publish; and I would just pick their papers and try to make cover art for it.
Just just for practicing.
Shekerah Primus 8:31
That's a really good thing.
Laura Canil 8:32
It was really useful. So for those who suggest, or if someone wants a similar career; it was really useful and also gave me the chance with these images, to show them to the colleagues
so that they also, you know, get to know that I'm doing this; and they like it. That was a little bit of marketing.
It also kind of connects to the second question because I think maybe half of my clients right now are people that knew me from the PhD. Or like, yeah, friends, like colleagues, or like some colleagues would just talk about me to another-- word of mouth. So some comes from that and then I was trying, I am still like being active in social media in general. I use LinkedIn, Twitter, which is not Twitter anymore.
I don't know what's the situation there now.
Fatu Badiane Markey 9:51
Nobody knows. Nobody knows.
Laura Canil 9:55
Every time I do something and publish it on my website; I have also an Instagram page. So I try to like push through the social media.
So for some people, they just see it there.
I don't know exactly how, but I got contacted by several people who I didn't know before and they were not in my scientific networks.
Social media does work for this.
That is great. Can we also share some of your social media in the show notes to go with this episode so that they can like see your work and reach out to you; great we'll make sure to have that for our audience.
Fatu Badiane Markey 10:42
So you make it sound so easy, Laura.
It's like the inspiration was there, then you studied and started your company, and you were scared but you were also excited and now everything has put together so beautifully for you.
Laura Canil 11:01
I think it's easier when you really like something, you know, because then you have the motivation to go through all the hard times.
Fatu Badiane Markey 11:08
So can you talk to us about some of the challenges like what were some of the hard things that you really have to just like push through to get to where you are now.
Laura Canil 11:19
Yeah, I mean, I said some already.
Especially like in living in a country where like, I live in Germany and my German is not perfect, so it's not exactly the easiest
Except that I will say also having to learn like everything like all the softwares from zero because there are people that study design, spend years and years learning how to use all these tools and they're changing all the time. There's a new update in the software every like three months basically.
So I guess it's been very tense, and you're still, I'm still learning.
I had to really put a lot of time and effort to start from zero and like trying to get better and better until it was like good enough to actually use them for for professional illustrations.
It was more or less that.
Fatu Badiane Markey 12:30
Yeah, right. It's kind of like, how do you get from starting at the beginning to where you're, you know, like practicing and doing these things with your network to feeling confident enough, right that you can really start to do this work for people you don't know right? Who may not be as nice as your friends.
Laura Canil 12:46
You have to make the jump like to be good enough. So again, I thought I'm just going to start. I also had the push because of this grant I applied for like I needed to be officially a freelancer to get it. If I want to have this little help, then I need to actually start right, just get out of your comfort zone. Just take the jump.
Fatu Badiane Markey 13:21
So you mentioned really quickly some advice that you would give to others, you know, just kind of start by, you know, working within your network and sort of like the people you already know to design for them. Are there any other advice that you would give to people who are interested in going into scientific illustration?
Laura Canil 13:39
I will say yeah, just start practicing in your free time or with whatever you can; because you can have more or less time of course, if you have a lot of free time, do courses to practice; but if you don't, it's already good enough to start with what you have like if you're doing a PhD or any kind of work which requires illustration. Then spend a bit more time on that or try it already to make it nicer.
Start slowly if you want to do a course or you don't have a lot of time just do one lesson every now and then there's like a good starting point in the end. And practice with whatever you can including then actual friends and colleagues and offer your help.
It's a good chance for you. This is good for them as well.
I find it like working for me and I think it's it was a good way to start.
Fatu Badiane Markey 14:42
And so if people want to reach you directly, what's the best way for them to do that?
Laura Canil 14:49
I mean, you can write me an email, on social media, on my website, like I answer to all of that.
Fatu Badiane Markey 14:57
Okay, great, and we'll make sure to have that information available for our listeners. So they can definitely reach out to you. So Shekerah, do you have any additional questions for the segment?
Shekerah Primus 15:08
Yeah. Very nice hearing about how you started your company, Laura, and I think you made a really, really smart decision. And how to prepare yourself and get clients and launch a company so really inspiring.
At one point you mentioned so you are based in Italy. You are based in Berlin, but you're you went to school in Italy, your family's in Italy. So I was curious.
What was your motivation? Can you just speak to why you decided to launch your company, your company from a different country; so why did you decide to move to Germany or for that?
Laura Canil 15:48
So yeah, I mean, originally I moved to Germany because of my PhD. So when I like already knew I would start my company, but in the end, I liked the excitement and the different experience when you live in different countries. So I love my home country as well. Like I go back as much as I can, but I also get so much from being in another country.
So for now, for now, I decided to stay in Germany, but I will probably move somewhere else in the future.
It's also a reason why I like this, being a freelancer because I can work from wherever I want to. I want to like stay here until like things stabilize a bit more.
There's nothing that's stopping me from going anywhere. So for sure I will go somewhere else. Maybe at some point go back to Italy.
I feel like the international experiences really feed the soul
That's something I don't want to lose
Shekerah Primus 17:10
Very adventurous.
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