2020 Online Salon
SARS-CoV-2 virion
Project Details
- Entrant Name: Veronica Falconieri Hays
- Membership Type: Professional Submission
- Address: Rockville, Maryland USA
- Client: Scientific American
- Copyright: 2020 Veronica Falconieri Hays
- Medium/software used: Cinema4D, Redshift, Photoshop
- Final presentation format: Magazine spread and cover
- Primary Audience: Readers of Scientific American (science interested lay audience)
Project Description
As an internal spread with labels, the primary purposes were to show the structure of SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) in molecular detail and to entice viewers to read the associated article, “Inside the Coronavirus”. The illustration was also chosen as the July 2020 Scientific American cover, where its purpose was to catch the attention of potential magazine buyers and subscribers.
The artist also wrote an associated blog post, “How I Built a 3-D Model of the Coronavirus for Scientific American,” including citations for all scientific sources used, calculations for scale (virion size, RNA length, etc.) and explanations of where data were not available and resulting hypotheses about the structure. Thus the secondary purposes were to provide a reference for researchers and fellow medical illustrators, and to highlight the medical illustration research and development process for audiences unfamiliar with the field.
