How do you illustrate risk when the danger isn’t always easy to see?
That was the challenge facing Matt Murphy when the Financial Times commissioned him to create a series of illustrations for RBC BlueBay, accompanying three articles exploring market volatility, risk and structural shifts in portfolios.
The subject matter covered some pretty complex territory, from hidden risks within seemingly diversified benchmarks to short-term market shocks and the realities of investing for the long term. Matt’s task was to distil these abstract ideas into imagery that felt clear and accessible, without losing the nuance behind them.
Luckily, Matt knows his way around a visual metaphor.
Working closely with the team at the Financial Times, Matt developed a series of atmospheric scenes where stormy seas, steadfast lighthouses and shifting river paths became ways of talking about uncertainty, stability and change. Rather than reaching for the familiar financial language of graphs, numbers and trading screens, each illustration finds a simple visual idea to tell the story.
The result is a set of illustrations that feel unmistakably Matt, while making some rather complicated subject matter a little easier to navigate.
A big thank you to Lois Vernon and everyone at the Financial Times for bringing Matt aboard.
