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November 2, 2022 18 mins

Promoting health and safety in agriculture is a long-term mission, and you can find amazing stories and impacts from the people working toward this goal, all you have to do is ask. My How, My Why, My Work is a subseries within The Essential Worker series from Science by the Slice. This episode features Sarah Fish, graphic designer for the Pacific Northwest Agricultural Safety and Health (PNASH) Center. Much of her work focuses on the creation of outreach materials related to occupational safety and health. As an experienced graphic designer, illustrator, and photographer, Sarah enjoys creating eye-catching visuals for the PNASH Center communications.

Resources:
https://deohs.washington.edu/pnash/

Transcripts available here: https://piecenter.com/media/podcast/#transcript

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Music “California Poppies” by Chad Crouch Available at https://freemusicarchive.org/music/Chad_Crouch/future-flowers/california-poppies/ Under CC BY license Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/

The views, information, or opinions expressed by guest speakers on Science by the Slice are solely those of the individuals and do not necessarily represent those of the UF/IFAS Center for Public Issues Education or the University of Florida.

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Ricky Telg (00:04):
This is Science by the Slice, a podcast from the
University of Florida'sInstitute of Food and
Agricultural Sciences Center forPublic Issues Education. In this
podcast, experts discuss thescience of issues affecting our
daily lives, reveal themotivations behind the decisions
people make, and ultimatelyprovide insight to solutions for
our lives.

Phillip Stokes (00:31):
Hello, I'm Phillip Stokes. Thanks for
joining us in our series, theessential worker. This is a
subset within that seriestitled, My How, My Why, My Work,
including conversations withindividuals working to make the
agriculture, forestry, andfishing sector safer for all of
those within it. Promotinghealth and safety in agriculture

(00:53):
is a long term mission, and Ibelieve you can find amazing
stories and impacts from thepeople working toward this goal.
All you have to do is ask.

Whitney Pennington (01:03):
Yeah, so I'll actually take you like way
back, not way back, but...

Sarah Fish (01:09):
My story is really about how a visual artist became
a science communicator.

Amanda Wickman (01:15):
My roles changed a lot over the years, but I feel
like I'm one of the products ofthe center.

Phillip Stokes (01:22):
These conversations were led by Dr.
Lisa Lundy, AgriculturalCommunication Professor at the
University of Florida. Andtoday's episode comes to you
from the Pacific Northwest.

Lisa Lundy (01:38):
Today's guest is Sarah Fish from the Pacific
Northwest Agricultural Safetyand Health (PNASH) Center. Sarah
creates eye catching visuals forthe PNASH Center communications.
As an experienced graphicdesigner, illustrator and
photographer, Sarah enjoysdeveloping different types of
graphics for print and web.
These include logos, brochures,fact sheets, posters, event

(02:01):
materials, and photography. Muchof her work focuses on the
creation of outreach materialsrelated to occupational safety
and health. Sara maintains asocial media presence for the
center, the various platforms,and select public campaigns. She
is also a key member of theoutreach core team. Outside of
work, Sarah keeps busy with hertwo little children. She enjoys

(02:24):
gardening with her family andvolunteers for the Seattle Pea
Patch Program at Interbay PeaPatch. All right, well, thank
you so much for taking time totalk with us today. And I wonder
if you could start by telling usa little bit about yourself and
your background.

Sarah Fish (02:43):
Hi Lisa. Thanks for having me on. Yeah, so I, my
story is really about how avisual artist became a science
communicator, working in thePacific Northwest. So I started
out, my undergraduate career wasin visual arts. I studied fine
art, painting and printmakingand photography, and really took

(03:07):
to it. I love creativeexpression and visuals. But I
also studied history andcultural history, in the form of
art, but also kind of more mediahistory, so printed materials.
And I think that has really lentitself well to what I do now in
communications. I've always beenintrigued by science, but more

(03:32):
in an exploratory way. I loved,you know, high school chemistry
class. I was the kid who reallyloved to dissect the fetal pig
in biology. I just, I reallyliked getting into how things
work. And, and so, yeah, that'skind of my background, I came to

(03:54):
the University of Washington sothat I could continue studies in
art, but I had to get a day joband I got a job in the School of
Public Health in the Departmentof Environmental and
Occupational Health Sciences.
And it always was kind of amouthful to describe to people
where I worked, and so I beganto sort of, at the very

(04:17):
beginning, trying to like winnowdown the words and kind of come
to the nugget of what we did inpublic health and in
occupational health and safety,and it's really about ensuring
the safety and health ofworkers. So once I finished my
studies in textile design, I wasoffered a job in graphic design

(04:41):
and communication for thedepartment. And then I picked up
more graphic design skills, andthey sort of lent well to what
I'd already learned in design.
And yeah, and then I ended upgetting a full time graphic
design position at PNASH, thePacific Northwest Agricultural

(05:03):
Safety and Health Center. And Ireally feel like it's been a
great journey. It's been a longjourney, but, you know, a
journey of like just figuringout how my skill set can lend
itself to the work that's neededhere. So yeah.

Lisa Lundy (05:23):
I love hearing that about how you ended up working
with the center. And I want toask you about what makes your
center unique. But I reallyappreciate what you said about
how it's such a mouthful for usto just say the name of our
centers, but then to describewhat we do. And so, as you talk
about what makes your centerunique, how have you used

(05:46):
visuals, whether it be logodesign, however you want to
describe that, how have you usedvisuals to demonstrate the
uniqueness of your center?

Sarah Fish (05:56):
Yeah, so one of the first major projects that I took
on when I came to the center wasto redesign the logo. And that
was really a process, an eyeopening process for me, but it
became kind of the model for howwe design things here anyway. It

(06:19):
involved my work, and thenpresenting my work to a number
of people, a number of groups ofpeople. So the science side,
sort of the communication side,the academic side, and asking
them, Well, does this logorepresent what you think our

(06:40):
center is? And we live in thePacific Northwest, a beautiful
place. We have trees, we havemountains, and the sea. And
really, the industries involvedin agriculture here reflect the
landscape. So we have fishing,we have farming, and forestry.

(07:03):
And when we were designing thelogo, we really wanted it to
represent all of those aspects.
So if you look at the PNASHlogo, we have the mountains in
the background, and the fishsort of swimming at the bottom,
and then the farm in the center.
And so those three aspects arerepresented, the colors

(07:27):
represent those naturalresources too. And then of
course, the purple representsthe University of Washington,
where where we make our homesand of course, the mountains
too. The mountains can bebeautifully purple sometimes. So
all those aspects, the colors inthe imagery, talk about where we

(07:49):
live.

Lisa Lundy (07:50):
It's a beautiful logo. I have it pulled up and I
was looking at it as you weretalking. And I wonder if you can
talk about the decision to havean older, looks like man and a
child walking together. Whatstory is that telling about your
center?

Sarah Fish (08:06):
So that was, the older man and and the child
represent generation. Primarilyin our region, we serve a
population of farmworkers whoare not indigenous to this part
of the country. A lot of themare Spanish speaking and come
from Mexico or South America,Central America. So we wanted to

(08:31):
represent those people in thepopulation. That represents, you
know, who we serve. And thensome of our research
incorporates the safety ofchildren as well. So we wanted
to make sure that children wererepresented.

Lisa Lundy (08:45):
I really like it a lot. It's beautiful. So as you
think about the importance ofvisuals, and telling the story
about your center, and perhapsthe different research projects
of your center, what are somepowerful visuals that you've
come across in doing this work?
Maybe things that you've createdor things that you've just seen
along the way?

Sarah Fish (09:07):
I go back to some of the photos of landscapes that
we've collected over the years.
I think those tell a really nicestory of, like, place, of
location, where we are. I reallyenjoy, sort of, the process of
finding visuals with my team andthe discussions that we have in

(09:28):
choosing the right visuals.
We've been using a softwarecalled Canva. A lot of the ag
centers have been using Canva, Ithink, for throughout the
pandemic. But one of the greatthings about Canva is that they
have really accessible visualsand so one thing we do is we try

(09:52):
to find visuals that representour stakeholder population, or
our key populations that weserve. So the farm workers that
we serve might have a darkerskin tone. And so we try to
incorporate graphics that reallywelcome those viewers to

(10:13):
understanding and receivingcommunication.

Lisa Lundy (10:15):
That makes a lot of sense. Can you think about, if
you think about back over thework you've done with the
center, can you think of anexample of a campaign or a
particular initiative and kindof walk us through your process
of thinking about what was themessage, and then what role
would visuals play in that?

Sarah Fish (10:35):
One of my favorite examples of a project that we
created was, during thepandemic, it became apparent
that people needed moreinformation. Workers needed more
information about mask usage,and how to wear a mask, and what
mask to wear. And at the time,we were working with our state

(10:59):
OSHA team, they have amulticultural safety and health
outreach team. And we partneredwith them during the pandemic,
just to make sure we got someinformation out to the employees
and employers working in farms,because they became essential
during that time period. Butimagery-wise, we took a document

(11:23):
that they already had, and itwas called, "Which Mask For
Which Task." And what we did is,we took maybe a 12 page document
that had already been, kind ofgroomed for making it more
accessible and understandable.
And we tried to, successfully Ithink, really hone it down to,

(11:43):
like, a visually-forwarddocument that could be shared on
social media, or a set ofInstagram cards. And we thought
that that would really quicklyget the information out. But it
was very technical information.

(12:04):
And a lot of research andscience was involved in, you
know, making the choices thatwere finally in that document.
So we worked with a team topinpoint, like, what could stay,
what could go. We made sure wehad images of the correct masks
to use, we made sure that thevisuals were organized in the

(12:27):
right way, so that, like, themost important information was
presented first. And I thinkthat "Which Mask For Which Task"
project was really successfulbecause of that collaboration
and that concept review. What Iguess, what I want to say is
that all the elements involvedin creating a successful graphic

(12:50):
design product were there. So Ithink that was a really
successful piece.

Lisa Lundy (12:55):
So we've talked about some of the things that
you've done so far in the centerand some of the strategies that
you've used. What would you saylooking forward are maybe some
new things that you'd like totry? Or you can go in whatever
direction you want with that.
That's something maybe youhaven't done before that you'd
like to try?

Sarah Fish (13:13):
One of the one of the great things about designing
with our team has been learningabout what process works best.
And I've started to, on my own,I'm, you know, when I'm
enhancing my design skill, andI'm learning about new concepts,
I'm looking at, like,human-centered design or

(13:37):
user-centered design, which is,at our center, we're making all
kinds of design documents. Sowe're, all right, I'm designing
printed materials, as well asdigital materials like websites
and apps. But I really feel likethere's a lot of effort going
into accessibility anduser-centered design, mostly in

(14:01):
the digital experience, so withwebsites and phone apps. But I
think the process that is usedin developing a lot of those
materials applies really nicelyto making materials and
resources for the ag workplace.
So when you're making, say, awebsite, and you want it to be

(14:22):
accessible to the visuallyimpaired, you will create a
website that, having it in mindthat you want to make it
accessible, really does create abetter product, I think, because
you have it in mind that allpeople are going to be looking
at this website. Taking thatstep to make it accessible to

(14:44):
users who might not read Englishas well or might not be able to
see certain colors or find thebutton you want them to press,
you know, I think taking thoseextra steps is really helping to
create a better product. That'swhat I'm interested in, is how
user experience can be adaptedto use for products and

(15:08):
resources that we share withfarmworkers and keeping
farmworkers safe.

Lisa Lundy (15:15):
I think that is such helpful advice for everybody who
does outreach, for any of thecenters and thinking about
design. I know that will besomething that will be really
helpful for our team to thinkabout. So as we wrap up, I
wanted to just ask, What have Inot asked you that you think
would be interesting for ourlisteners?

Sarah Fish (15:36):
I just want to say that, like, my work is the work
of my team. I have an amazing,supportive team. And we produce
materials that are in Spanishand in English. They're, I feel
like, they're really easy tounderstand. And a lot of that
can seem very simple. Butthere's so much work that goes

(15:59):
on in just that iterativeprocess of reviewing it and
changing it. Throughout, eventhroughout the pandemic, we met
weekly with the team thatincluded our state OSHA, State
Department of Health, you know,PNASH center, community
organizations, and also like,just community members, a lot of

(16:22):
our team, my team comes from thecommunities that we serve. So
you know, they're bilingual,bicultural. So I think those
aspects are not always reflectedin the end product that we send
out. But those things are soimportant in the production of
what we make. And I don't thinkwe could do it without those

(16:46):
special people. So I just wantto say their names. Dennise
Drury is our outreachspecialist. Idanis Cruz is our
research coordinator. EddieKasner is our outreach director.
But then there's tons morepeople that we work with, who
are partners too. And I thinkthe partnerships are really,

(17:08):
really important for us.

Lisa Lundy (17:10):
Well, I really appreciate you saying that
because you're right that youare trying to reach so many
stakeholders, but you're alsocollaborating with many of those
same stakeholders to create themessages in the visual so thank
you for saying that.

Ricky Telg (17:28):
Science by the Slice is produced by the UF/IFAS
Center for Public IssuesEducation in Agriculture and
Natural Resources. Thanks forlistening to today's episode.
Subscribe to Science by theSlice on your favorite podcast
app and give us a rating orreview as well. Have a question
or comment? Send us an email topiecenter@ifas.ufl.edu. That's

(17:50):
piecenter, all one word, atifas, I-F-A-S, dot ufl dot edu.
We'd love to hear from you. Ifyou enjoyed today's episode,
consider sharing with a friendor colleague. Until next time,
thanks for listening to Scienceby the Slice.
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