Dorota Paczesniak
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dorotdesigns.bsky.social
Dorota Paczesniak
@dorotdesigns.bsky.social
1.6K followers 1.5K following 150 posts
Scientific illustrator, educator, biologist
🇵🇱 in 🇫🇮
Drawing to explain and inspire
Commissions open: DM

Visual design portfolio:
https://www.behance.net/dorotdesigns
she/her
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dorotdesigns.bsky.social
If you see this post your bird art #birds

I hope imaginary birds count too, I used these for a lesson about evolution #sciart
A cartoon illustration of four birds with strange beaks. They’re supposed to look like chopsticks, a spoon, drinking straw and a fork. This was an illustration for a lesson about evolution: “Natural selection in peachicks”
November 10, 2025 at 4:48 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
Snailposting? Yes please! #SciArt
A silhouette of a freshwater snail, Potamopyrgus antipodarum, in shades of gray
November 9, 2025 at 8:50 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
Hello, it’s #PortfolioDay and I’m a scientific illustrator open to commissions of figures, infographics, learning materials, posters, presentations, branding and character design

I’m also open to a full time-job in communications or educational design 🐡
Figure from a scientific review paper on plant phenology (the cycles of seasonal changes) focused on integrating information other than plant leaves. This figure shows a model of biogeochemical flux (y axis) and time throughout a year (x axis) in three scenarios: A- per species, B- cumulative, C- cumulative with interactions. The three species are indicated with colours (green, yellow, purple) and distinct leaf shapes. Morris, K., & Nair, R. (2025). Below the leaves: Integrating above- and below-ground phenology for earth-system predictability. Functional Ecology, 00, 1–19. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.70057 Digital vector drawing of Siberian larch (Larix archangelica, syn. Larix sibirica): tree silhouette and branch with cones A photo of a leaflet open to show the inside pages. A cell and DNA structure are visible in addition to non- legible information. This is an infographic for the Conservation Genetics Workshop Citation: Buser CN, Weber AAT, Feulner PGD, Richman S, Fischer MC, Grossen C, Naciri Y, Paczesniak D, Paerli R, Reutimann O, Tschan J, Widmer A & Gugerli F. (2025). Types of genetic markers: What can they reveal? (Conservation Genetics Workshop, Infographic 1). Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research WSL. https://doi.org/10.55419/wsl:40663 Lemonade Exploration logo in yellow and white on a dark background with some website icons and some delicate light grey lines that resemble contour lines of a mountain terrain.
October 14, 2025 at 7:20 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
This snail silhouette is now available in PhyloPic: Potamopyrgus antipodarum, the New Zealand mud snail. It was really fun to draw, as we have a close connection: I have studied their fascinating reproductive system in my PhD www.phylopic.org/images/51df2... 🧪🐡
A black silhouette drawing of the snail Potamopyrgus antipodarum - a freshwater mollusc with a bit pointy shell
October 12, 2025 at 6:52 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
It’s here! Such a thrill to hold the book in my hands: “The Communicating Scientist” with my illustrations inside. It’s the kind of book I wish I had when I was a PhD student, and I’m glad to have it as a reference as a communications professional #SciComm 🧪
link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
Me holding the book “The Communicating Scientist” Me holding the book “The Communicating Scientist” open on the title page. The text reads: Olle Bergman • Sarang Park • Joanna Bagniewska The Communicating Scientist A Practical Handbook with illustrations by Dorota Paczesniak The book open on a page showing some illustrations related to the colour theory The open book showing an illustration of a metaphor for a scientific conference, where the contacts you want make are the fish and your poster is a fishing rod.
September 23, 2025 at 7:02 AM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
That’s how the ground looks like when you look closely - Finnish Lapland, latitude 68 N #nature #arctic
A close-up photo of a mossy forest floor with three little brown mushrooms in the middle A close-up photo showing two glossy white mushrooms and some moss and leaves around them A photo of the forest floor showing moss, lichens and mushrooms A close-up photo of bright green moss and a small rock
September 10, 2025 at 2:27 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
Proudly presenting "The Communicating Scientist" - a communication handbook by Joanna Bagniewska (@joannabagniewska.com), Sarang Park, and Olle Bergman, with illustrations by me 😄

Link to the book: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...
20% discount with this code: SPRAUT
August 20, 2025 at 10:15 AM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
My most recent design/illustration project is out! 🐡Three infographics for the conservation genetics workshop, aimed at practitioners working in #biodiversity conservation #consgen 🧪
Available in German, French, Italian and English with a CC BY license: free to use, share and modify
Front pages of three infographics: 1: Types of genetic markers: what can they reveal? 2: Concepts of population genetics 3: Conservation genetics in practice: how to plan a project? An infographic in a form of a folded flyer, showing the front and the back page. The front page has a title: "Types of genetic markers: what can they reveal?", as well as bullet points for the main take-home messages, and an illustration of three levels of biodiversity: genes, species and populations. The back page has an info box about open and FAIR data and the footnote with contact details, "how to cite", funding, and institutional logos An infographic in a form of a folded flyer, showing the open inside page with a large table explaining the four essential biodiversity variables: genetic diversity, genetic differentiation, inbreeding, and the effective population size. The German language version is shown. An infographic in a form of a folded flyer, showing the front page. This is the French language version of the infographic titled "Conservation genetics in practice: how to plan a project?" Apart from the bullet points for the main take-home messages there is an illustration of the main steps of the project planning. The visual summary follows a path from 1) define the problem & form the question, 2) identify partners, 3) plan the project, 4) do the work and obtain results, 5) communicate findings, 6) formulate recommendations. There are visual icons for the different partners (land owners/farmers, engineers, foresters, researchers, nature conservationists, planners, government agencies) and an additional path going back from partners (2) to problem/question (1) labeled „co-create”
July 8, 2025 at 7:04 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
It’s fun to look at my illustrations from 2019 as I update my portfolio with some of my older outreach projects www.behance.net/gallery/2297...
A cartoon style drawing of a bright green frog and 3 pairs of pink chromosomes. The caption says: Origami frogs are a unique breed of frogs made of paper. They have 6 chromosomes (3 pairs) in each of the cells in their body. Genes are located on chromosomes. A photo of a sketchbook and loose pages on the table. On the pages there are drawings of frogs in black ink/pencil with varying degrees of detail. There are also two green origami frogs (folded paper with eyes drawn on top) A photo from the public outreach event "Agriculture in the city" (2019) in Saskatoon (SK, Canada). Two presenters (me, Dorota Paczesniak, and Angie Li) are leaning over a table with bright green origami frogs and the paper worksheets with my drawings. In front of us there are children and we’re pointing at the teaching materials engaged in the conversations
July 7, 2025 at 7:59 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
#SciArt #Artshare I’m a scientific illustrator with genetics and evolution background open to commissions of infographics, illustrations, scientific figures, …
A fragment of an infographic about genetic markers, showing a close-up of a plant cell with nucleus, mitochondria and chloroplasts. A DNA strand is unraveling from a chromosome A vector drawing of Siberian larch (Larix archangelica, syn. Larix sibirica) tree silhouette and branch fragment with seed cones A large infographic entitled „Genetic variation in improved forests” with sections about tree breeding in Finland, propagation (seed orchards and vegetative propagation) and forest regeneration. Made in collaboration with the Natural Resources Institute Finland (Luke) and the University of Helsinki
June 28, 2025 at 8:25 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
infographic design process #education #congen #edchat #sciart
June 23, 2025 at 6:47 AM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
The third infographic „Conservation Genetics in Practice-how to plan a project?” evolved a lot between the draft versions
A paper draft with messy handwriting and a drawing that goes from „Question” (a person with a thought bubble with a question mark) to „Approach” (4 puzzle pieces fitting together) to „project planning” (a flow diagram with boxes connected by arrows) An intermediate digital draft of the infographic on planning a conservation genetics project. The visual part has now 5 stages planned: 1) question, 2) identify partners, 3)approach, 4) project planning and 5) outcome: recommendations A digital first page of an infographic titled „Conservation genetics in practice: how to plan a project?” The visual summary follows a path from 1) Define the problem and form the question 2)identify partners 3) plan the project 4) do the work and obtain results 5) formulate recommendations. There are visual icons for the different partners (land owners/farmers, engineers, foresters, researchers, nature conservationists, planners, government agencies) and an additional path going back from partners (2) to problem/question (1) labeled „co-create”
June 22, 2025 at 5:52 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
Recently I have been working on creating learning materials for a Conservation Genetics Workshop organized by several Swiss research institutions. The final infographics will soon be published with CC BY license, but I think it’s interesting to show how the visuals developed
This is a first paper draft: a pencil sketch on paper in messy handwriting with some drawings of coloured fishes. Large and small population is shown and gene flow between them This is the first page of an intermediate digital draft, titled Concepts of Population Genetics. On top there are 3 bullet points will the main message. The drawing features populations of different coloured butterflies (in shades of pink, yellow, purple and blue, some are mixed colours). The large population has larger diversity (more colours) that the small population. There is gene flow between the two populations. Genetic drift is depicted as: 1) founder effect, spatial (one pink butterfly leading to all-pink population) and 2) genetic bottleneck, temporal, (the resulting smaller population has fewer colours, meaning less diversity). Selection is depicted as a text box with arrows pointing in different directions. This is an advanced version of the first page of an infographic titled „Concepts of population genetics”. In the illustration four main evolutionary processes are depicted: genetic drift, selection, gene flow/migration, and mutation
June 22, 2025 at 5:52 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
It was fun to make figures for this paper and I’m really glad how they turned out
A conceptual figure illustrating some of the differences between above-ground and below-ground environments that are important for plant phenology From: Morris, K., & Nair, R. (2025). Below the leaves: Integrating above- and below-ground phenology for earth-system predictability. Functional Ecology, 00, 1–19. Figure caption: Above- and below-ground environments differ. Most phenology information comes from above-ground, where resource gradients, plant–soil functionality, and coupling to photosynthesis are not the same as below-ground.
April 30, 2025 at 6:26 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
Happy #DarwinDay!
A comic style drawing of Charles Darwin, smiling with his eyes closed, thinking about the tree of life
February 12, 2025 at 5:49 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
This drawing from my old sketchbook, while a little messy, demonstrates a lot of things I care about: data visualization, ecology, proper labels for axes, and silly-looking animals #inktober 🐡
Oscillations in the population size of predator and prey (Lotka-Volterra model). A hand-drawn sketch in black ink. Population size is on the Y axis and time (years) on the X axis. Population sizes oscillate over time. The fox population peak appears a bit later than the rabbit peak. There are cartoonish drawings of a smiling rabbit and a fox with a heavy eyelid that serve as labels
October 3, 2024 at 6:00 AM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
I used to made ink-on-paper drawings for #inktober for several years on instagram. It has always been a great drawing practice, and I made it fun for myself by not following any prompts, just drawing what I wanted. Here’s a bedbug (Cimex lectularius) from 2021 🐡
A line drawing of the common bedbug (Cimex lectularius) - black ink on paper
October 1, 2024 at 8:04 AM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #625,424!
Bluesky now has over 10 million users, and I was #625,424 (first 10%)
September 18, 2024 at 7:01 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
Many of my drawings start off as sketches on paper, and are then finished digitally. I’ve done some infographics, book illustrations and scientific figures. I like designing silly and cute characters. I’m open for commissions #SciArt #ArtShare
An infographic explaining the concept of genetic gain in the context of forest tree breeding. Genetic gain is the change of the average phenotypic value between the parent and offspring populations due to selection. A cartoon style drawing of a snail holding a sword and shield with three little spiky creatures attacking it with their own tiny swords. It was made to illustrate host-parasite interactions - the study system of my PhD dissertation were the New Zealand mud snails Potamopyrgus antipodarum and their trematode parasites A cartoon portrait of Charles Darwin dreaming about the tree of life Conceptual figure illustrating differences in seasonal distributions of photosynthetic activity (carbon assimilation) for temperate herbs with differing phenological syndromes (evergreens [purple], spring ephemerals [pink], summer greens [blue]) relative to understory light levels (line). The shape and magnitude of these conceptual photosynthetic activity curves may vary within and among species. For example, summer-green species vary in their relative proportion of early-spring photosynthetic gain that occurs before overstory tree canopy closure. From: Benjamin R. Lee, Abby J. Yancy, and J. Mason Heberling. Phenological Escape and Its Importance for Understory Plant Species in Temperate Forests | International Journal of Plant Sciences: Vol 185, No 4
September 18, 2024 at 7:30 AM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
If you see this, post a #bird
A cartoon illustration of four European owl species (sizes not to scale). Top left: eagle owl (Bubo bubo); bottom left: tawny owl (Strix aluco); top right: barn owl (Tyto alba); bottom right: snowy owl (Bubo scandiacus). The owls have quirky facial expressions and are digitally coloured in shades of brown, grey and orange
July 5, 2024 at 8:43 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
I’ve done a #SciArt thing and it’s now published! (Forgot to tag the original post)
A photo of Dorota Paczesniak (me) holding an open book. On one page there is an illustration of a cross section of an alpine stream and surrounding vegetation. On the other page some photos of alpine plants
May 28, 2024 at 8:02 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
It’s a great feeling to see my illustrations in a real book! I loved working on them. The book is available here www.haupt.ch/buecher/natu...
A photo of Dorota Paczesniak (me) holding an open book. On one page there is an illustration of a cross section of an alpine stream and surrounding vegetation. On the other page some photos of alpine plants A photo of an open book. On one page there is an illustration of trophic interactions in an aquatic ecosystem A photo of the front cover of the book “Biodiversität zwischen Wasser und Land | Exkursionen zu Gewässern, Mooren und Auen der Schweiz” by Florian Altermatt, Sabine Güsewell and Rolf Holderegger. The cover photo depicts a lake shore with natural-looking vegetation A photo of an open book. On one page there are two illustrations depicting the development of subterranean limestone erosion and on the other page an illustration depicting water circulation and formation of groundwater
May 28, 2024 at 6:37 PM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
Another of my figure designs just got published! Corine Schoebel and colleagues from the Swiss Research Institute WSL asked for help in presenting a table of presence-absence data in a visually appealing way. This is what I came up with. Paper link: link.springer.com/article/10.1... 🧪🐡
Fig 3 from Schoebel, C.N., Prospero, S., Rigling, D. et al. Fishing for Phytophthora in watercourses of the highly urbanized Swiss Plateau. Mycol Progress 23, 17 (2024). Figure caption: Phytophthora species detected in Switzerland up to 2023. Phytophthora species were grouped into ITS Clades following Yang et al. (2017)1. Historial data2: Bolay & Schwinn (1996). Watercourse3: This study. Forests4 (includes urban trees): Ruffner et al. (2019), Mizeriene et al. (2020), and Prospero et al. (2023). Nurseries5: Prospero et al. (2013). P. plurivora6 this species identified as P. citricola in Bolay and Schwinn (1996)
March 5, 2024 at 8:11 AM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
Happy Darwin Day! Today is Charles Darwin’s birthday and an occasion to celebrate science and evolution 🧪🐡
A cartoon drawing of a bald man with a large beard with his eyes closed. Above his head there is a schematic phylogenetic tree with branches leading to several organisms, e.g. apple, fern, starfish, moose and others
February 12, 2024 at 6:53 AM
dorotdesigns.bsky.social
I can now share some of the illustrations I’ve been working on last summer. These are from an upcoming book about the links between aquatic and terrestrial biodiversity. Thanks @florianaltermatt.bsky.social for the opportunity to design the figures. The book link: www.haupt.ch/buecher/natu... 🧪🐡
A screenshot of two pages from a book including an illustration of an alpine floodplain landscape (cross section) with a stream and surrounding vegetation. The second page includes four large close-up photos of sedges and flowering plants A screenshot of two pages from a book including an illustration of a lake shore cross section with different vegetation zones A screenshot of two pages from a book including a two-panel illustration of an agricultural landscape cross section with a stream and zones with different land use designations A screenshot of two pages from a book including an illustration of a riverbank cross section with different vegetation zones
February 6, 2024 at 6:46 PM