A Better Deep-Sea Poster

i-b942c1f2185d082898c17ae308c3f342-Pelagic Realm Poster small.jpg

Speaking of deep-sea posters, Dr. Charles Messing (Nova Southeastern University), who ordinarily works on crinoids and deep-sea corals and just generally a renaissance man, has left the benthos to offer this 25x36-inch wall poster that includes 109 of his pen-and-ink illustrations of pelagic organisms from bacteria to whales and from the surface to the abyss. The drawings are arranged by ecological grouping and depth, with names, taxonomic affiliation and maximum known size. The short is you can be sure the information is accurate and the drawings exceptional.

The poster is available on www.ebay.com (search Pelagic Realm poster) for US$25.00, which includes USPS Priority mail shipping with tracking. You can get in touch with him at messingc@bellsouth.net for international shipping.

i-ac8bc24bd2f8a5b0fe5722100c76a3b7-Pelagic realm poster closeup.jpg

i-b8c3657176e9bb102454875bd2f638a0-Pelagic realm poster closeup2.jpg

More like this

Story by Bryan Wallace, Duke University. UW photo by Ed Standora. Life in the deep sea is as far removed from a source of atmospheric oxygen as there is on Earth, but a select few animals do not let their need to breathe air limit the depths of their exploration. (No, I'm not referring to intrepid…
I personally love doing this series because it allows me to explore and solidify a variety of ideas I mull over on daily basis. Previously in this series I have discussed the difficulty of sampling, the variety of habitats, linkages to the oceans surface, body size, conservation, undiscovered…
I have finally gotten around to creating a list of deep-sea themed books, with some others thrown in at Amazon. Some of you will recognize a handful of the titles that have been reviewed here. Others will be new. As I find new books, and feel free to recommend some, I will post here noting I…
Sunday evening the intelligent and lovely Sheril Kirshenbaum posited a question that I have received many times. The question is always a good one because it stems from knowledge and deductive reasoning. The said question requires one to know that one of the most extreme environmental gradients…

I like the way Dr. Messing's poster illustrates a wide variety of life forms, placing larvae next to medusae next to billfish and whales. This poster would look best hung low on the wall, I think, so you could see and read the illustrations and the text. It's a very nice piece. Might look great in a classroom.

I am tempted to order. But all that energy and effort to produce this poster and the illustrator went with Comic Sans? Ouch!

Dr. Messing-- you are off to a good start on your art and poster.

Perhaps we can help get it redesigned and printed on green paper -- even distribute in US?

I would recommend another font, and perhaps another way to handle the text graphically.

Print on Endeavor or some other green Forest Stewardship Council Paper.

best fishes,

Timothy Colman, publisher

It is no easy task self producing and printing a poster so lets all give Chuck a break. Picking apart the text and font on this is bit of splitting hairs. The font and text are readable but not formal. The illustrations and time spent are no less than amazing. Printing on green while ideal may not have been available nor allowed for a poster that was affordable by many.

splitting hairs

I respectfully disagree. There is a great discipline and tradition of scientific illustration with guilds devoted to splitting those very hairs. It is clear that Dr. Messing is a gifted draftsman. But the readability and function of the text on a work like this is as important as the images themselves. That is, if they are meant to convey information and not just be a collection of pretty pictures. It is incredibly frustrating to realize how much time, energy and effort went into those images and then see them juxtaposed against a font originally meant for use only in a cartoon-based Internet chat space. I find it baffling.

Stop your damm belly-aching. At least you can buy it. I can't get any joy with the international shipping link. We may as well be on the far side of Mars for us deep-sea fans outside of the US of A :-(

Dear sir,
I am a students in biology department can you please send me a poster contains spore structure of bacillus.
Yours Sincerely
Othman

Andrew, the international shipping link is the email address for Dr Messing, I believe. He created the poster.