I talked to the winner of the graphic design competition and learned a lot of interesting things about her. As it turned out, Nata loved nature from childhood and always tried to take care of it. She is now a third-year student studying communications design at Free University. As she told me, she entered this faculty because of her love of book cover illustrations, photography and art history. I talked to Nata about many more interesting topics that I would like to share with you:

What inspired you to create this poster?

My main source of inspiration was my own childhood. I fell in love with nature in the village, during summertime. I have been worried about cutting down trees since I was a child - I remember tall poplar trees were cut down in front of our building in Tbilisi. I even cried because of that. Back then I could not even comprehend the importance of caring for the ecology - I just noticed that cutting a few trees radically changed the environment and made it less cozy.

To celebrate the New Year, people are engaged in many non-eco-friendly activities - pyrotechnics, Christmas tree cutting and so on. How did you separate the most important topic to you?

Probably we all agree that cutting down trees for no reason is bad. A Christmas tree is used only for a  few days, and when there are other alternatives, it is best to apply them.

When I started thinking about the work, the memory of my childhood came to life in my mind, I thought of the cut trees and the very first association with the Christmas tree. The slogan came to mind first and then the concept of visuals. I wanted to convey the message as simply and clearly as possible. I think properly chosen words can have a huge impact on humans.

As for the visuals - the presence of annual rings on the trees is one of my favorite facts - by analyzing them, scientists learn a lot of interesting information.

How important is it to have similar projects in the field of ecology and to unite artists around a common idea?

Social media is one of the main sources of information today. This information has a great impact on our daily behaviors. Therefore - if we want to raise awareness of specific issues in the community, the use of social media is the best solution. As for the medium - there is a greater chance that a poster / photo will attract a person's attention than just the caption. You may hear something about the fact, but you have a hard time seeing how big its scale can be.

I also learned a lot about ecology through the internet and changed my daily habits (I try to carry water everywhere with my glass bottle and avoid buying plastic bottles). Of course, it is impossible to change all the non-eco-friendly small things in one day. Start and if you fail once, do not give up because of it.

We need to understand that environmental issues affect almost everyone and it is important for more people to re-evaluate their habits.