Cominata has one goal: to make science communication more accessible. Visually!
We are a one-stop shop for resources and content designed to support researchers, students, educators, and the general public better communicate (and understand) complex ideas.
Cominata is an initiative by Cooked Illustrations, a visual research communications agency based in Wales. After several years working with scientific researchers from such diverse fields as marine biology, paleoecology, sociology and arts research, we realised that there is a growing need for products and resources that fulfil specific communication needs at an affordable price. Since funding structures for science communication can sometimes be hard to acquire or require quite a bit of stakeholder investment, we hope that this repository for resources helps us transform the way in which researchers, organisations, educators, and the general public are able to communicate knowledge.
Why call it Cominata?
Cominata is a colloquial name for catfishes usually found around estuarine or brackish water environments in Panama. The word describes individuals within the Ariidae family, and is mostly used by fishing communities on the Pacific side of Panama.
The species portrayed in the logo is Notarius cookei, a species named after Dr Richard Cooke, the father of Cooked Illustration’s founder Ian Cooke Tapia, who passed away in February 2023.
The decision to name the shop Cominata is an act of remembrance and a memento for what could have been.
But why does it look so cartoony and “unserious”?
Precisely because all the other available content doesn’t look like it!
People’s attention basically evaporates if they look at a very, very familiar (or uninteresting) image.
As such, our content is drawn to stand out from the rest!
Can't find what you're looking for?
We can make it for you, then.
Just reach out to us via EMAIL and let us know what you'd made. T&Cs apply.
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