Teaching Assistant, Advanced Typography
Kristin Hughes, Associate Professor
The Sixth Extinction in Motion is a partnership between MacQuarrie Byrne Films, Carnegie Mellon University, and University of Tennessee. Based on the book of the same name written by renowned paleoanthropologist, Richard Leaky, The Sixth Extinction is a feature documentary being created by MacQuarry Byrne Films that deals with the largest, yet least-reported crisis presently facing our planet; a story that for a host of reasons continues to fly under the “radar” of all the major news organizations. We are in the middle of the a “Sixth Extinction”—a massive die-off of our planet’s species, the like of which as not been seen since the end of the Age of Dinosaurs. Presently, one species is going extinct every twenty minutes. Over seventy species are going extinct every day.
Students selected an iconic endangered species to create an awareness campaign about the sixth extinction. I facilitated this project for our junior-level undergraduate design students which included:
1. coordinating contacts with scientists working in the field around the world with whom the students could ask questions, consult and fact check
2. creating a blog for the students from both Carnegie Mellon and University of Tennessee to chronicle their processes as they gave the Sixth Extinction a visual voice, have a dialog with each other
3. providing feedback and critiques of the students’ concepts and visual execution
4. creating a short introductory sequence for the students to use for their videos
This map shows where our scientists call “the office,” though many of them work in locations around the world when in the field.
Students developed pictograms and motion pieces to convey the cause of their species’ decline, the consequences of the losses of the species, and one small change we can make to help preserve them.
All the students worked hard to create compelling pieces that many of our scientists were excited to view. These are some of my favorite videos & pictograms:
Black Rhino, Hanah Ho
Mountain Gorilla, Victor Ng
Sea Turtles, Victoria Adams
Frogs, Samia Ahmed
Orangutans, Maya Irvine
The Sixth Extinction trailer, MacQuarrie–Byrne Films
PROJECT LEADS
Ciara Byrne, MacQuarrie–Byrne Films
Kristin Hughes, Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon University
Deborah Shmerler, Associate Professor, University of Tennessee
Duration: first semester
My role in developing and designing additional resources for The Sixth Extinction is currently undergoing definition
