Light's Secret Code

Editorial Science Illustration • BBC Science Focus • 2024
Stylized illustration: light rays travel from a galaxy cluster toward a distant prism in space. Via the prism's refraction, the galactic light turns into iridescent, swallow-like birds, carrying scrolls of absorption spectra. Art by Olena Shmahalo for BBC Science Focus.

FOR
BBC Science Focus, 2024
Thanks to AD Joe Eden

WORK
Concepts, illustration, animation

TOOLS
CSP, Procreate, Procreate Dreams

INFO
"[These] light rays carry with them the story of the cosmos itself." A stylized illustration: rays traveling from a distant cluster of galaxies are transformed into luminous, iridescent birds carrying scrolls inscribed with absorption spectra.

Created for the print & Apply News editions of a column on BBC Science Focus, by Dr Katie Mack: How light's 'secret code' reveals the story of the cosmos.

Animation for Apple News

BBCSF_Spectra_SkeFor thumbnail sketches with notes explaining each concept: A Messengers -

Concept sketches

Screenshots of WIP stages of a stylized illustration from sketch to finish: light rays travel from a galaxy cluster toward a distant prism in space. Via the prism's refraction, the galactic light turns into iridescent, swallow-like birds, carrying scrolls of absorption spectra. Art by Olena Shmahalo for BBC Science Focus.

WIP Screenshots

Photograph of a magazine spread. At the top is a stylized illustration: Via a prism's refraction, galactic light turns into iridescent, swallow-like birds, carrying scrolls of absorption spectra. Art by Olena Shmahalo for BBC Science Focus.

Photograph of the article in print


Screenshot of a Q&A with Katie Mack on Quanta Magazine: This Cosmologist Knows How It’s All Going to End. Art directed by Olena Shmahalo

© Olena Shmahalo