Piscivore [old+new]

A reworking of an old project. You can compare the two just to see the different approaches I took. In the old version, I was basing a lot of the shapes on the swooping motions that each of the birds used in fishing. I also chose to show the full body of the birds in their water environments but stylized the water [which was an experimental approach] to draw together the organic birds with the geometric backdrop.
In the new version, I opted for a closeup view of each bird because I felt that a more detailed view of the actual fishing mechanism of each bird was more important than seeing their full body. Additionally, I went for a lighter palette so that the background did not overshadow the main content. Finally I cleaned up the sequential diagrams, turning them into vectors just for clarity's sake. There's a time to use pixels and then there's a time for clean, crisp, vectors. I actually learned a lot from making myself go through this exercise. I'm very pleased with the new version.

New

Old