Preserving Beauty

In 2020, I created this illustration for a competition organized by Gesenu to celebrate the company’s 40th anniversary. The brief was to communicate themes such as sustainability, waste separation, and environmental protection through a single image.

My initial idea was quite different. I was working on a scene focused on people and the well-being of a clean city. It was a valid message, but it felt like it only represented the final outcome.

Every day, someone has to deal with what others leave behind: waste, neglect, and urban decay. It’s a challenge that repeats itself day after day, often without being noticed.

That’s where the concept took shape.

The sanitation worker is no longer just someone doing their job, but becomes a modern-day warrior. A bin lid turns into a shield, the broom becomes a weapon, and the landscape itself depicts the conflict between two opposing realities.

On one side, neglect. On the other, a cared-for environment.

I didn’t want to illustrate the act of collecting waste. I wanted to portray the act of protecting something worth preserving.

The beauty of a city doesn’t depend only on how it is designed or built. It also depends on the people who work every day to keep it that way.

This is also how the message “Preserving Beauty” was born.

More than the title of the illustration, it was meant to be a slogan. The idea was that Gesenu’s vehicles would become more than service trucks or a visual celebration of the company’s 40th anniversary. They would become a moving campaign, carrying a message capable of reminding people that behind every clean city is the daily work of those who protect it from neglect.