Part One

COVID Chronicle: A Day in the Life

Personal visual documentation of pandemic routines

Concept

This piece started as a reflection on how daily rhythms changed during COVID. With life happening almost entirely at home, I wanted to create a sequence of icons that captured both mundane and emotionally significant moments. Each icon serves as a snapshot of one action or theme in my day.

Process

I sketched and simplified each activity into minimal line based icons. My goal was to make them readable, relatable, and consistent across form, weight, and spacing.

Examples of icons created

• Checking time and charging devices

• Running or walking to stay active

• Applying hand cream due to constant sanitizing

• Meditating

• Continuous hand washing

• Opening blinds and staying indoors

• Coding or remote work

• Virtual meetings

• Going outside briefly

• Wearing a mask

• Coming home and sanitizing

• Cooking meals

• Sending letters or packages

• Logging mood or health

• Nighttime routine

These icons became a personal timeline that visually documented the emotional and behavioral shifts of early pandemic life. The clear line work and square framing helped unify the set and made it easy to expand.

Part Two

Expanding the Icon Set for Universal COVID Meanings

As the Chronicle grew, I also created icons representing broader pandemic symbols, not just my personal routine. This included:

• Quarantine

• Locked homes

• Online learning

• Screen fatigue

• CDC style mask visuals

• Distanced communication

• Remote hobbies

These extensions built a more complete system that could function as both a diary and a shared cultural record.

Part Three

Environmental Impact Poster

Using my icon package to visualize research on air pollution and waste during COVID

Using data from a researcher in a different department, I designed a poster that communicates the urgency of rising pollution and environmental risk. The research focused on how increased energy use, carbon emissions, agriculture, and industrial waste were amplified during the pandemic.

Concept

I used an hourglass as the central metaphor to communicate time running out before irreversible damages occur. The top half represents preventions. The bottom half represents consequences if action is not taken.

Icons integrated from my COVID Chronicle package

Even though the poster is about environmental issues, the unified icon style made it possible to repurpose and expand certain icons to represent:

• Carbon emissions

• Industrial waste

• Agricultural impact

• Health effects like lung and heart disease

• Preterm birth risks

• Energy consumption patterns

This connected the personal experience of living through COVID with the global environmental consequences unfolding at the same time.

Poster Structure

• Top section: prevention behaviors and personal accountability

• Central hourglass: symbol of urgency and limited time left

• Left side: causes of pollution

• Right side: health effects

• Bottom: the warning that there is only one decade left to prevent irreversible global damage

I used warm earth tones and rounded shapes to balance the seriousness of the topic with visual accessibility.

Reflection

This project pushed me to think of design systems not as isolated pieces, but as flexible visual languages that can scale from personal storytelling to global communication. Creating icons for my own daily life taught me how to simplify visual form. Expanding the icons into research communication taught me how to adapt aesthetic choices to serve complex scientific messages.

Together, the Chronicle and poster illustrate how visual design can make both personal and global narratives more understandable and relatable.