Introducing s-Ink.org – a community portal for sharing quality science graphics

Everyone, be it scientists, students, teachers, media outlets, or the public, regularly turn to a “google” image search when exploring a scientific concept. Yet, the recovered images are often suboptimal in terms of [1] scientific quality and accuracy, and/or [2] the aesthetics and artistic value. One such common example from the solid Earth sciences, is the (false) impression that the Earth’s mantle is molten, red, and that mantle plume upwellings exclusively coincide with mid-oceanic ridges. Another common issue might be that the labels or content are not sufficient for the users purpose (e.g. axes not indicated, features not labelled). Furthermore, scientists often spend a lot of time and energy in making images (whether for manuscripts, presentations or outreach) and are willing to share their image for anyone to re-use or modify. However, a central, convenient means to share them is lacking and, crucially, them to be readily found by others. To help address this, we have created the online s-Ink collection (s-Ink.org; Crameri et al., in submission). It is a free, community-driven exchange platform for high quality, science-related graphical products. We document several key graphical quality measures to ensure that submissions maximise accessibility (e.g. via scales or colour choices), broaden applicability (e.g. through modifiable vector-based options), and facilitate creativity (e.g. via graphic design principles). Products can include conceptual illustrations, templates, data visualizations, animations, icons, and more. Contributions will be shared with the entire community under a clearly stated license, so that individual efforts will be acknowledged. The content can be downloadable either directly from the s-Ink website or via a link to an external site or repository (for example, in the case of large or pre-existing content). With this abstract we will showcase the website, discuss data and science visualization, encourage feedback and invite contributions all EGU22 attendees.