It all started with a visit to the Desert Garden at the Huntington Library.
As I was shooting the cacti, these fragile, blue-green plants, the image of a community came to mind, a community that had the desert garden for habitat, where nature functioned thanks to symbiosis. I thought about overlaying the images of the community of cacti –made to resemble continents- on a world map.
This became an idea for a customizable mug and pen (image was used in a 3D program to better visualize the result)

Final design in customizable mug and pen. 2009
Shortly after, I was made aware of a competition for a commencement poster design, which needed to express the ideas of sustainability.
Well, I believe there are no coincidences! The cacti/world project was used in the brainstorming phase and design of the commencement program cover.
This was the final design which won the the Honorable Mention- the letters say ‘water the plants’, and are both a chart and a cityscape:
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