The scientific illustration studio workspace

Our team is made up of three graduates of the same medical illustration master’s program in the Netherlands; the Master of Medical and Scientific Illustration (MSI) at Zuyd Hogeschool in collaboration with Maastricht University. 🎓

We’ve noticed that there isn’t as much information out there as the other medical illustration programs, so I decided to write a blog post about the MSI program, to help possible future students understand what they might be in for!

Ezra, Tiffany, and Margot (left to right)

This will be about our personal experiences and our favorite aspects of the program. If you are looking for more general information and the admission procedure, visit: https://www.zuyd.nl/opleidingen/master-fine-art-and-design-scientific-illustration

In Vesalius’ footsteps

This Master of Fine Art and Design is based in Maastricht, the Netherlands, and lasts two years.

I really enjoyed living in Maastricht, so did Ezra and Tiffany. (which might explain why we are still here, 4 months after graduating! 🤓) Maastricht is a charming city with a beautiful historical center.

The program is a collaboration between Zuyd Hogeschool & Maastricht University, which means you get the best of both worlds:

Art education @ Zuyd Hogeschool
Anatomy lessons & dissection practice @ Maastricht University

One of our first assignments is to illustrate a skeleton at 1:1 scale

The artistic education here focuses on storytelling.

Scientific illustration is the art and discipline of translating complex scientific information into a cohesive visual story, for a specific target audience.

The view of the professors at MSI is, generally, that when a student knows how to tell a story in a traditional piece of art, they will be able to do so in all digital techniques and software.

This is why the focus here is not on software-knowledge, but more on the foundations you need to be a good visual communicator and medical illustrator.

Different software workshops are offered and give you a brief introduction to new techniques. If a student wants to explore a software further, they are given all the tools and encouragement to fulfill that desire independently.

Students receive a solid base on what it means to be a scientific illustrator, including lectures about the history and ethics of the profession. This, combined with the beautiful renaissance building where the studio is located, really gives the impression that you are walking in the footsteps of all scientific illustrators that came before you.

The teachers at MSI all have different backgrounds, different expertise, and different outlooks on certain topics. This creates a unique learning environment.

Our experience

I asked my colleagues Tiffany & Ezra what their favorite parts of the MSI program were.

Ezra: “I really value that we were taught to refine traditional techniques before going into digital media. That made me a better digital artist.

I also really enjoyed that we had access to actual animal and human specimens which we were able to explore & draw from for weeks. Also the weekly life-drawing classes, they were invaluable.”

Tiffany: “I appreciated the emphasis on learning from each other. I loved the studio environment because it really made me feel like I was reliving the experiences of the original scientific illustrators. I also appreciated the mixture of students and our different backgrounds because you could learn something different from everyone instead of just being copies of each other trying to do the same thing. Also, the diversity of the backgrounds of the teachers allowed each student to find someone that they connected with.”

In short; if you want to pursue medical illustration in a European program, choose MSI in Maastricht if you:

want to work in a beautiful studio environment, sharing experiences with other students
enjoy small, dedicated groups (each year has a maximum of 8 students)
are interested in refreshing your traditional art fundamentals
have an interest in both human and animal anatomy
want to have close collaboration with teachers

The three of us are very grateful for our experiences at MSI and the valuable lessons we learned, as they make up the foundation for what we are doing now.

If you have any questions for us about the program, don’t hesitate to reach out, we are more than happy to answer!

Thanks for reading! 😊