Created the design layout, the logo design, the advertisement illustration, the design standards manual and produced the photography for this project in a class called Design Production Team. The assignment was to create a magazine with a theme and decide responsibilities as a group. The inspiration and meaning for the magazine was to find beauty in serendipity, or in places you would not expect. We decided to make this a square eight inch magazine because we wanted it to be unique. For my articles I chose to create layouts about wildlife and nature. One can always find beauty just by looking in nature but there is a deeper beauty in understanding how nature works. The articles following talk about how bees are essential to human life and how we cannot have life without decay and death.
Bees & the human race We decided this time to explain the importance of the Bees in our everyday life. Very few people know what is going on with the world’s bee population and the effect they have on our food supply.
So let’s talk about it. Here too we need to restrict our desire of wanting everything to look perfect. We will have to welcome a few weeds and chards, pulling them out of the garden by hand; knowing that this is the way to act from now on to protect our ecosystem.
Why? This is why.
be common, have more or less disappeared from the entire continent. In the UK, three species have gone extinct.” Friends of the Earth called the findings “very significant”. Bees feed on pollen and nectar produced by plants. Female bees collect pollen to feed their larvae, storing it in pollen baskets in their legs or on branched hairs on their body. As they go from flower to flower they inevitably lose some of the pollen they have collected. Some of this pollen may land on the female parts of other flowers of the same species, resulting in cross-pollination.
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.”
Common pesticides could be wiping out bee colonies by causing pollen-gathering insects to lose their way home, research suggests. Two studies provide strong evidence that pesticides sprayed on farmers’ fields, and used on private gardening threaten bumblebees and honeybees. One team of British scientists showed bumblebee colony growth slowed after exposure to a chemical. Another group of French researchers tracked foraging honeybees and found that pesticide tripled their chances of dying away from the hive. The chemical was thought to disrupt the bees’ homing systems. Insecticides calledneonicotinoids may fuel Colony Collapse Disorder. The phenomenon, marked by the disappearance of honeybee colonies, is a problem in northern hemisphere countries. Bumblebees are at risk. Professor Dave Goulson, from the University of Stirling, who led the British study, said: “Some bumblebee species have declined hugely. For example, in North America several bumblebee species, which used to
Just as much as bees have a role in ensuring the survival of humanity, we also have roles in ensuring their survival. This way, we can ensure that the symbiotic relationship we have with bees will endure for many more generations.
All elements of an ecosystem are important to the functioning of that ecosystem. It may be positive or negative, from a human standpoint, but we cannot look at nature from a human standpoint only. Why? Well, ecosystems are complex, possibly too complex for us to be able to understand all the connections and actions and interactions that takes place within them. If we do not know what will happen if something changes, it makes no sense to rush in and make those changes.
Albert Einstein
Now, with bees and honey bees, in particular we know that over one-third of our food supply relies upon them for pollination services and we know that pollination is essential for the reproduction of the plants the bees service.
The honey bee is a major pollinator of many of our food crops, almonds, apples, avocados, blueberries, cantaloupes, cherries, cranberries, cucumbers, sunflowers, watermelon and many other crops all rely on honey bees for pollination. So if honey bees disappear and we do not find replacements that can do the work they do; then foods that we take for granted will decrease in supply and increase in price. The pollination service provided by insect pollinators, bees mainly, was €153 billion (euros) in 2005 for the main crops that feed the world. This figure amounted to 9.5% of the total value of the world agricultural food production. The main reason that the honeybees are important for our world is as simple as this; if the honey bee does not pollinate the crops, the crops do not grow and produce the food that gets harvested and brought to the store where we buy it and bring it home to feed ourselves and our families.
In other words, there is a direct connection between the bees pollinating the crops and our ability to provide food for our families. One of the things about honeybees is the fact that they are important. Important at the human scale – not just important to beekeepers, or me but important to the quality of life enjoyed by beneficiaries of developed economies the world over. This importance does not hang on honey production, but pollination – nothing less than our food supply.
Is it true that human life depends on bee pollination? Or, more precisely, to what extent does the quality of human life depend on bee pollination? These are legitimate questions, and it’s in everyone’s best interest to promulgate answers based on good biology and economics. Organization (FAO) from 1961 to 2006 reached some divergent conclusions of the question “How important is animal-vectored pollination?” The authors of the FAO analysis concluded that the proportion of global food production attributable to animal pollination ranges from 5% in industrialized nations to 8% in the developing world.
About 75% of the world’s crops benefit to some degree from animal pollination; only 10% of that 75% depend fully on animal pollination. A second explanation is that pollinator-dependent crops tend to have lower average production levels than non-pollinated crops. But there is another mega-trend at work, and that is that global demand for animal-pollinated crops is increasing faster than the demand for non-pollinated staples. The fraction of total production made up of animal-pollinated crops grew from 3.6% in 1961 to 6.1% in 2006, and even these statistics mask a huge jump in the years since 1990. In other words, more people around Planet Earth want ice cream, blueberry tarts, watermelon, almond chocolate bars, coffee, and yes McDonald’s hamburgers – and the trend shows no sign of slowing. So, to what extent does the quality of human life depend on bee pollination?
I would say a lot. We are losing the bees that live naturally in the wild. We depend on these insects for our food, but in an ecosystem where pollution and urbanization are altering nature dramatically, bees are in major trouble.
There are three main reasons for this.
1.
Bees are losing their food sources.
Rural and forested land is consistently being developed for housing and shopping malls, reducing the flower sources bees feed on. In addition, bees can’t find nectar and pollen as easily as they used to because of weed sprays and “better” pasture care. The weeds, from which they gather much wildflower honey, simply aren’t there.
2.
Bees are adversely affected by conventional agriculture practices. This kind of farming utilizes pesticides, which kill harmful pests, but also beneficial insects like the bees.
3.
The varroa mite.
This mite is an external parasite of minute proportions that plagues bees. It was first discovered in Indonesia in 1904 and was transported to the Americas by humans. It attaches itself to bees and sucks their blood, significantly reducing their life span. (Commercial beekeepers developed a remedy for the mite, a miticide that keeps their hives alive and able to work. The miticide is, however, yet another poison bees come into contact with.) Paul de Zylva has said that: “The bee is a cherished icon of the British countryside and our gardens and is the farmer’s friend that helps pollinate our food crops, so we cannot afford further decline. “We now need the Government to look seriously at the emerging evidence from here and other countries and consider whether neonicotinoid pesticides should continue to be used freely in the UK and the World.” As a result of the loss of wild bees, farmers in the United States have resorted to renting bee hives from commercial beekeepers for pollination. Indeed, this business has become so important that the beekeeper is often paid more money to haul his or her bees from flowering crop to flowering crop than they are for honey: up to $350 per hive per season. Multiply that by
hundreds, even thousands of hives that are needed and that’s much more than a beekeeper can make selling honey. Take the California almond industry, for example. In 2007, the California Almond Board stated almonds are California’s number one horticultural export, occupying 550,000 acres of land. In 2006, this important revenue-generating crop required over one million beehives to support its yield, and the Board projects needing over two million hives by the year 2012!
We should all be concerned after all; bees are essential not only for their honey and beeswax but, more importantly, for their roles in food production for humanity’s benefit. Many of our food crops for both man and animals depend on bees for pollination. It is estimated that if the bee population was somehow reduced by at least 30 percent, more than half of the world’s food supply will be adversely affected. With droughts, earthquakes and other natural and manmade disasters befalling us nowadays, losing the bees is yet another challenge to our survival as the dominant species on Earth. We may even go the way of the dinosaur and the dodo, no thanks to the elimination of our little striped helpers. So we now know that there is a bee “situation”; the lesson is to protect our bees. Originating from Africa or Europe we need their “pollination” and we need to stay away from using chemicals and pesticides. We promise and hope that you do too! Please no more pesticides and chemicals! Exercise in the garden and gardening is great and keeps us healthy and we must also keep our ecosystem healthy. Now we know that Bees are essential to the production of “one third of human food” directly through their role in fertilizing crops. They are also essential to the feed production of “animals that make up another one third of our diet”. This most vital process to human survival is threatened by the careless modification of foods carried out by scientists
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thinking in only one box at a time. The genetically modified plants clearly are highly toxic to bees and moths as well as caterpillars. Something needs to be done urgently, if bees are to survive this toxic intervention in nature. Humans Suffer From The Toxic Environment Too. The chemicals are entering our bodies in increasing quantities. The way that humans excrete toxic substances – sweating through the skin – is also much reduced compared to past times. Many people find that regular Infra Red saunas are helping to improve their general health.
We will no doubt be hearing more depressing news about our own health, our environment and collapse of vulnerable species in future. We need to educate ourselves a whole lot more if we are to survive into the future. One person at the time we will win this battle.
“If the bee disappeared off the surface of the globe then man would only have four years of life left. No more bees, no more pollination, no more plants, no more animals, no more man.” Albert Einstein
Article Source: greendustriesblog.com Photography By: Naomi JEAN Bush
With D e cay Comes Beauty In our modern-day human culture, decomposition and decay have often come to be viewed quite negatively, with the former mainly associated with things that are rotten, have a bad smell and are generally symptomatic of death, while the latter is similarly viewed as very undesirable, whether it be in terms of urban decay, or, on a much more personal level, tooth decay. However, they are vital processes in nature, playing an essential role in the breakdown of organic matter, recycling it and making it available again for new organisms to utilise. Decomposition and decay are the yin to the yang of growth, and together they form two halves of the whole that is the closed-loop cycle of natural ecosystems. Everything dies, and without the processes of decomposition and decay the world would quickly become not only overflowing with the remains of dead plants and animals, but also would experience a decline in new growth, due to a shortage of nutrients, that would be locked up and unavailable in the dead forms.
literally ‘feeders on dead or decaying organic matter’. Many of these decomposer species function in tandem or parallel with one another, with each being responsible for a specific stage or aspect of the decomposition process, and collectively they are known as the detritivore community.
Nature’s unsung heroes of recycling A wide range of organisms takes part in the decomposition process, with most of them being relatively inconspicuous, unglamorous and, from a conventional human perspective, even undesirable. The detritivore community includes beetles and their larvae, flies and maggots (the larvae of flies), woodlice, fungi, slime moulds, bacteria, slugs and snails, millipedes, springtails and earthworms. Most of them work out of sight, with their handiwork not immediately apparent, but they are the forest’s unsung heroes of recycling. Almost all of them are small in size, and their function happens gradually in most cases, over time periods measured in months or years, but cumulatively they convert all dead plant and animal material into forms that are useable for growth either by themselves or other organisms.
Decomposition feeds new growth
Decomposition feeds new growth
What is decomposition? Decomposition is the first stage in the recycling of nutrients that have been used by an organism (plant or animal) to build its body, and are surrendered back to the ecosystem upon its death. It is the process whereby the dead tissues break down and are converted into simpler organic forms that are the food source for many of the species at the base of ecosystems. The species that carry out the process of decomposition, and feed on the ‘waste’ products produced by it, are known as detritivores, which means
Decomposition in plants The primary decomposers of most dead plant material are fungi. Dead leaves fall from trees and herbaceous plants
tuft fungus (Hypholoma fasciculare), which fruits on logs that are at an advanced state of decomposition. In a forest, the rate of decomposition depends on what the dead plant material is. Leaves of deciduous trees and the stems and foliage of non-woody plants generally break down quickly, and are usually gone within a year of falling to the forest floor. Some plant material, such as the fibrous dead fronds ofbracken (Pteridium aquilinum), takes longer, but will still be fully decomposed within three years. The needles of conifers, such as Scots pine, are much tougher and it can take up to seven years for them to be completely broken down and recycled. The rate of decay is also determined by how wet the material is - in general the wetter it is the faster it breaks down, while in dry periods or dry climates, the organic matter becomes dessicated and many detritivores, such as fungi and slugs and snails, are inactive so the decomposition process becomes prolonged. collapse to the ground after they have produced seeds, forming a layer of litter on the soil surface. The litter layer can be quite substantial in volume, with the litter fall in a Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris) forest estimated to be between 1-1.5 tonnes per hectare per year, while that in temperate deciduous forests is over 3 tonnes per hectare per year. The litter is quickly invaded by the hyphae of fungi - the white thread-like filaments that are the main body of a fungus (the mushrooms that appear on the forest floor, mostly in late summer and autumn, are merely the fruiting bodies of the fungus). The hyphae draw nourishment from the litter, enabling the fungi to grow and spread, while breaking down the structure of the dead plant material. Bacteria also play a part in this process, as do various invertebrates, including slugs and snails, springtails and, as the decay becomes more advanced, earthworms. This decomposition process is usually odourless, and is aerobic, meaning that it takes place in the presence of air (oxygen in particular). On the forest floor it is spread out both spatially and in time. When people make compost heaps in their garden, they are utilising the same process, which is concentrated and accelerated by piling the dead material together in a compost heap, where the heat that is generated speeds up the process of decay. Fungi that feed on dead plant material are called saprotrophic fungi and common examples include the horsehair parachute fungus (Marasmius androsaceus), which can be seen growing out of dead grass stems, leaves or pine needles, and the sulphur
Decomposition of woody material the rot sets in In contrast to the softer tissues of herbaceous plants, the fibres of trees and other woody plants are much tougher and take a longer time to break down. Fungi are still mostly the first agents of decay, and there are many species that grow in dead wood. The common names of species such as the wet rot fungus (Coniophora puteana) and the jelly rot fungus (Phlebia tremellosa) indicate their role in helping wood to decompose. The growth of the fungal hyphae within the wood helps other detritivores, such as bacteria and beetle larvae, to gain access. The fungi feed on the cellulose and lignin, converting those into their softer tissues, which in turn begin to decompose when the fungal fruiting bodies die. Many species of slime mould also grow inside dead logs and play a role in decomposition. Like fungi, they are generally only visible when they are ready to reproduce and their fruiting bodies, or sporocarps, appear. Some decomposers are highly-specialised. For example, the earpick fungus (Auriscalpium vulgare) grows out of decaying Scots pine cones that are partially or wholly buried in the soil, while another fungus (Cyclaneusma minus) grows on the fallen needles of Scots pine.
As the wood becomes more penetrated and open, through, for example, the galleries produced by beetle larvae, it becomes wetter and this facilitates the next phase of decomposition. Invertebrates such as woodlice and millipedes feed on the decaying wood, and predators and parasites, such as robber flies and ichneumon wasps, will also arrive, to feed on beetles and other invertebrates. For trees such as birch(Betula spp.), the wood becomes very wet and rotten, and falls apart quite easily after a few years. Earthworms and springtails are often seen at this stage, when the decomposing wood will soon become assimilated into the soil, and they can reach high densities - the biomass of earthworms in broadleaved forests in Europe has been estimated at up to one tonne per hectare. The wood of Scots pine, however, has a high resin content, which makes it much more resistant to decay, and it can take several decades for a pine log to decompose fully.
It’s a fungus eat fungus world Most fungi, being soft-bodied and having a high water content, decompose quickly, often disintegrating and disappearing within a few days or weeks of fruiting. The tougher, more woody fungi, such as thetinder fungus (Fomes fomentarius) and other bracket fungi, can persist for several years. However, in many cases they have specialist decomposers at work on them. The tinder fungus, for example, is the host for the larvae of the black tinder fungus beetle (Bolitophagus reticulatus) and the forked fungus beetle (Bolitotherus cornutus), which feed on the fungal fruiting body, helping to break down its woody structure. Another bracket fungus that, like the tinder fungus, grows on dead birch trees, is the birch polypore (Piptoporus betulinus), and it in turn is colonised by the ochre cushion fungus (Hypocrea pulvinata), which feeds on and breaks down the polypore’s brackets. The bolete mould fungus (Hypomyces chrysospermus) is another species that grows on fungi, in this case members of the bolete group, which have pores on the underside of their caps instead of gills and includes edible species such as the cep (Boletus edulis). The silky piggyback fungus (Asterophora parasitica) and its close relative the powdery piggyback fungus (Asterophora lycoperdoides) fruit on the caps of various brittlegill fungi (Russula spp.), accelerating the process of breakdown and decay in them. Slime moulds, although not actually fungi themselves, are somewhat fungus-like when they are in the fruiting stage of their life cycle
Decomposition in the animal kingdom In sharp contrast to decomposition in plants, fungi play a very limited role in the breakdown of dead animal matter, where the vast majority of the decomposers are other animals and bacteria. Animal decomposers include scavengers and carrion feeders, which consume parts of an animal carcass, using it as an energy source and converting it into the tissues of their own bodies and the dung they excrete. These range from foxes and badgers to birds such as the hooded crow (Corvus corone cornix), and also include invertebrates such as carrion flies, blow-flies and various beetles. The dung they produce in turn forms the food source for other organisms, particularly dung beetles and burying beetles, while some fungi, including the dung roundhead (Stropharia semiglobata) grow out of dung, helping to break it down.
For animal carcasses that are not immediately consumed by large scavengers, ecologists identify five stages in the decomposition process. The first of these is when the corpse is still fresh, and is typified by the arrival of carrion flies and blow-flies, which lay their eggs around the openings, such as the nose, mouth and ears, that allow easy access to the inside of the carcass. In the second stage, the action of bacteria inside the corpse causes putrefaction and swelling of the carcass due to the production of gases. This is anaerobic decomposition, or decay in the absence of air, and it is characterised by its bad smell, in contrast to the odourless nature of aerobic decomposition. The next stage commences when the skin of the corpse is ruptured, which allows the gases to escape and the carcass to deflate again. In this decay stage, the larvae or maggots of flies proliferate in large numbers and consume much of the soft tissues. Predators such as wasps, ants and beetles also arrive, to feed on the fly larvae. In the following stage, only cartilage, skin and bones remain, and different groups of flies and beetles, plus their respective parasites, take over the decomposition process. Finally, only bones and hair remain, and they can persist for several years or more, although even they are consumed - for example, mice and voles will gnaw on old bones, to obtain the calcium they contain. The progression through these stages depends to some extent on the time of year when death occurs, but typically it will take several months from beginning to end.
Decomposition feeds new growth While decomposition and decay may appear to be unpleasant processes from our human perspective, they are vital in terms of the functioning of ecosystems. Just like compost in a garden, they provide essential nutrients for the growth of new organisms, and are a key aspect of the cyclical processes that maintain all life on Earth. A renewed appreciation of their importance will help humans to protect and sustain ecosystems, and may even provide inspiration for the establishment of an alternative to the unsustainable unlimited growth model that drives human culture today.
Article Source: treesforlife.org.uk Photography By: Naomi JEAN Bush
STANDARDS MANUAL
about serendipity What is Serendip it y? ser路en路dip路i路ty
noun
the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way.
This magazine shares the found beauty of the world. One stumbles upon beautiful things in unexpected places and unexpected times. Whether it is an artist, a place, a person working, an antique uncovered, a small minnow swimming, a thought, a memory, a feeling, a story, there is beauty everywhere we look. Beauty can be found in happiness, greif, death, birth, it is everywhere. A picture is worth a thousand words. A thousand words can then become a story. A story can be told and last generations to come. Things that inspire us, inspire us for a reason. Beauty may be staring you in the face everyday you just have to open your eyes and stand from a different vantage point to see it.
Logo Guide Design Standards ANATOMY Logotype
Three diamond brand mark (can be used by iteself)
Slogan
bounding Space The smallest diamond is used to measure the bounding space corresponding to the logo size.
Identity Color Guide Wha t co l o r s ca n b e use d F o r T h e Lo g o
CMYK: 76, 55, 30, 69 RGB: 12, 16, 22 HEX: #1f2938 CMYK: 83, 38, 29, 40 RGB: 12.2, 34.1, 42 HEX: #1f576b CMYK: 89, 37, 11, 13 RGB: 2.7, 46.3, 64.3 HEX: #0776a4 Paper White
Registration Black
Acceptable Fonts A n d whe n t o use t hem Ostrich Sans Black.............. Heading, quote, blurb Ostrich Sans Bold................ Heading, Quote, Blurb Ostrich Sans Medium.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heading/Subheading, quote, Blurb Ostrich Sans Rounded.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Heading/Subheading, Quote, Blurb Ostrich Sans Condensed Light.. . . . . . . . . . .subheading, Quote, Blurb Ostrich Sans Dashed Medium.. . . . . . . . . . . . . . Subheading, quote, blurb Baskerville Regular........................................................................ Body Copy 10pt Baskerville Italic.............................................................................. Proper Copy Title, Quote, etc. 10pt Baskerville Bold........................................................................... Heading, Quote 14pt or > Baskerville Bold Italic................................................................ Heading, Quote 14pt or > Baskerville Heavy.................................................................. Heading, Quote 14pt or > Baskerville Heavy Italic.................................................... Heading, Quotes 14pt or >
Article Color Guide What colors can be used To keep each article layout design interesing and new; the colors for design elements are taken from the main article photograph. It is effective to have a light, medium and dark color. Having a range of shade makes heirarchy and legibility easier to accomplish. The above left photo has similar colors just in different shades. The below left photo utilises the complimentary colors chosen.
Page Layout HoW TO USE THE GRID
Page size: 8in x 8in Margin: .5in Columns: 9 Rows: 3 Gutter: 1 1.) Main article photograph takes up first page of the spread 2.).Overall layout shape makes a square 3.).There must be a personal statement or quote inside surrounding text 4.).Layout can break the grid as long as it makes sense with the design