Hey. I'm Zev.

I'm a creative & communicator

helping you

tell your stories

in playful and impactful ways.

Work

Cat Alley - Melbourne Zoo 2023 - Zoos Victoria

Zev worked as an interpretive designer for Melbourne Zoo - Cat Alley - Zoo Victoria.

The role was to tell the story of the campaign by creating an animation that would be situated in the space. Zev researched, wrote and then animated the video. He was also hired to tie together all the disparate styles of artwork that were already inside the Cat Alley zone. He created a set of characters and scenes that would tell the story and punctuate the space, leading audiences through the alleyway in a fun and photogenic way. Zev also created stickers and other materials for the client to augment and build on the campaign.

Island Whales Festival 2022-2025 Destination Philip Island, Dolphin Research Institute, Bass Coast Shire.

Creative on the organising committeefor Island Whales Festival, delivering branding, educational design, and large-scale interactive installations. Produced mascots, updated logo, and created signage, digital content, and merchandise. Designed an educational activity book and interpretive displays repurposed for visitor centres, cruises, and educational purposes.

Prehistoric Bayside Exhibition 2024 - Bayside City Council

Collaborated with curator and palaeontologist Ben Fransichelli on Prehistoric Bayside Exhibition, contributing both illustration and overall exhibition design. Created life-sized artworks including the world’s largest bird, a five-metre shark, and a full cartoon panorama of Miocene-era life. Designed interpretive signage, exhibition logo, marketing materials, animation, posters, and stickers. The exhibition has broken all attendance records for Bayside.

Bass Coast Dinosaur Trail 2023 - Bass Coast Shire

Creative contributor to the Bass Coast Dinosaur Trail, initially producing the trail map and interpretive content for the project website. Developed a suite of scientifically accurate and emotive hero characters for each site in collaboration with leading Australian palaeontologists. Later engaged in an expanded role, creating educational activity and colouring-in books, designing merchandise, and developing a retail strategy for the trail. Contributed to site-specific concepts, including a digital field guide.

Wilpattu National Park 2021-2022 - Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit & Department of Wildlife Conservation Sri Lanka

Commissioned by The Parrotfish Collective as lead creative for the ‘Supporting Wilpattu National Park and Influence Zone Management’ project in Sri Lanka, implemented by GIZ and the Department of Wildlife Conservation. Led the rebranding and development of interpretation and educational resources, including redesign of three visitor centres, logo creation, visual style guide, park signage, mascots, educational activity books, community outreach materials, and a conservation-themed children's book.

Wild Whittlesea 2024 - City of Whittlesea Council

Zev was approached by the Conservation Interpretation team at Whittlesea council to create a full visual brand identity for Whittlesea Council conservation and community engagement programs.We also created a series of attractive patches/stickers/designs to showcase the animals and plants that are special to Whittlesea Council.The project was to create something that was not just visually appealing, but through research and best interpretation design and communications practice, ensured the design was both impactful and connected the audience (the community) with the story (local native wildlife and wild spaces). Zev worked closely with the conservation and interpretive team to learn about the species and find the most effective way to create something for their educational and outreach programs.

Creative Workshops

Zev has run a number of successful creative workshops for groups ranging in ages from little kids to adults. Some of the workshops have been connected directly to exhibitions or other projects allowing the client another avenue to engage the community with a topic.The topics of the workshops have included “how to cartoon...” “how to create effective and impactful conservation communication” and “how to make things funny”

The underlying themes of the workshops are encouraging people to enjoy and play with their creativity and to think about how they can make a positive impact on their audience no matter their job or creative method.

Haliskia peterseni 2024 - Kronosaurus Korner Museum

Zev worked with leading pterosaur palaeontologist Adele Pentland and Kronosaurus Korner Museum (Richmond, Queensland) to create a character based artwork and range of inspiring merchandise to help celebrate and communicate to a wide audience the discovery and unveiling of Australia's newest pterosaur: Haliskia.The range had the duel aim of creating a character that would capture the imagination of a general public, (encouraging them to then find out more and delve deeper into the science) and contribute to the place making and brand awareness of Kronosaurus Korner.

Keep us safe - Give us space 2023 - DEECA - Victorian Government

Zev was commissioned by the Department of Energy, Environment and Climate Action and Australian Southern Right Whale expert Dr Kasey Stamation to develop Whale nursery boater awareness signage and outreach materials to go up at all boat ramps. The work was based on community based social marketing and behaviour change principles and involved research with the audience and stakeholders considering attitudes, benefits, and barriers of the issue.Work was expanded to include the creation of educational and outreach materials

Say No To Bushmeat Campaign

Zev worked as creative director on the "Say No to Bushmeat" awareness and behavior change campaign.
Working through Parrotfish Collective, the campaign was run in collaboration with the Lanka Environment Fund, Leopocon, and SCAR (Small Cat Advocacy and Research). The campaign aimed to curb the demand for bush meat by illuminating the true costs of ordering a traditional bush meat curry. It educates their audience on the negative effects of the industry on local biodiversity by highlighting the impacts of snaring and by-catch.

Sri Lanka National Surfing Team Design

A broad patron toward the surfing community in Sri Lanka, Zev contributed through event management, creative design and story-telling. This included designing the official Olympic surfing team branding in direct collaboration with the countries leading athletes helping to bring their hopes and dreams to life.
This passion for visual story-telling in the community has continued in his association within the Phillip Island and Victorian surf communities.

Zev Landes Environmental Illustrator.jpg

The Parrotfish Collective

Zev is a Co-founder and ongoing creative contributor to Parrotfish Collective, a volunteer-based group of wildlife enthusiasts turned conservation communicators. We focus on developing engaging educational content that bridges the gap between conservation professionals on the frontlines and the public. Through our work we aim to re-communicate science in visual and creative ways.

Our mission is to inspire and empower communities with knowledge, thereby providing the impetus to achieve lasting change. Through our work we hope to create an informed community that can be mobilized towards environmental protection.

Colombo Wetlands

Urban Fishing Cat Conservation Project Partnership

Having identified the potential to build a solid working relationship with the Project, we entered into collaborations surrounding creating awareness materials for community engagement programs. This partnership has yielded several different materials including mascots for the urban wetlands, development of merchandize to contribute towards fundraising, assisting in documenting fieldwork within study sites and an illustrated guide to the urban wetlands of Colombo. This project was funded by the UNDP.