In 1980, there were just five Black Robins remaining, ‘Don't Put All Your Eggs in One Basket’ is the story of the Black Robin’s rescue from certain extinction through the use of cross-fostering, a technique in which offspring are removed from their biological parents and raised by surrogates. In the case of the Black Robin the eggs and chicks were incubated and raised by Black Robins, Warblers, and Tomtits – in some cases one chick would have three sets of parents, all different species. Prior to its use in the Black Robin programme, cross-fostering had only been used in captivity, this offered new choices for the management of threatened species worldwide.
The concept of this work was to typographically communicate the cross-fostering and the recovery of the Black Robin population that it led to. These themes were translated into the keywords – increase (of the population) and transfer (eggs that were to be cross-fostered had to be moved between nests and frequently to a different island).
Bird related idioms in the main titles reflect the use of puns, idioms, and other literary devices in log books kept by the Wildlife Service team during the Robin management programme. Strikethroughs are used to alter the meaning of titles or lists.
The left page of the book acts as the timeline with major population changes marked with the year and population size at the top of the page.
To emphasize the population change the repeated use of the word ‘bird’ is used across the page, with one ‘bird’ for each Black Robin. As the population increases the shape the ‘birds’ create becomes more solid and begins to creep onto the right side of the spread, and finally, taking up an entire spread.
The main page colour on the timeline pages also relates to the direction the population is heading in; black or red for a decline and white for an increase.
Spreads with milestones involving cross-fostering have a page of transparent paper with the word ‘egg’ repeated across it, as with the ‘bird’ words there is one ‘egg’ for every egg transferred during that season. There is one transparent page for each featured breeding season that used cross-fostering. As the reader turns the page they are literally transferring the eggs.
This book was designed in response to the 'Milestones' brief from the ISTD student assessment in 2015.
This poster was also designed in response to a different element in the story of the black robin.
