Phase 1 — Live Graphic Recording

On the day of the assembly I worked as a visual observer, moving quietly through the room with a pencil and grey markers and an A3 sketchbook.

My brief wasn't to record what people were saying — it was to capture the room itself: the energy, the body language, the moments of concentration and laughter and debate. Twenty-six workers from across the aviation industry — different roles, ages, and backgrounds — deliberating together about the future of their work and their world.

Each exercise the participants moved through had its own visual rhythm, and I tried to find that in the drawings: the clustering of small groups, the way people lean in when they're really thinking, the gestures people make when they're trying to explain something they feel strongly about.

The sketchbook pages — photographed and scanned — were delivered as a complete documentary record of the day, and used to illustrate the final assembly report.

Phase 2 — Vision Illustrations

After the assembly I produced a suite of vector line drawings translating the participants' collective vision into visual form for the published report.

The assembly had produced a vision structured around five themes: social responsibility, financial change, technical development, political strategy, and environmental stewardship. The illustrations gave each of these a visual language — clean line work with integrated text, designed to sit comfortably within the report layout and communicate the participants' ideas clearly and accessibly.

I was sent the text for the vision then started by sketching ideas for each point. These were sent for feedback, revisions were made then the line art was created based on the approved sketches.

The Assembly Report

The full report can be downloaded here and more information about the assembly can be viewed on Safe Landing's website. Here are some of the pages where the illustrations were used.

What the client said