The promotional video for the JDRF #CountMeIn awareness campaign, tells the story of 5 year old Emma, who was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes, how this condition affected her family, the questions her friends had about it and the misconceptions many people have about type 1 diabetes.
Since this story is about a little girl called Emma, I felt that the audience needed to see a character on screen to embody the girl we are talking about. But because this was a pro bono project, we needed to keep the production cost low. I devised a solution that would allow us to have an animated character on screen, without the ambitious character rigging and animation process.
The slightly swaying Emma, hanging off of a balloon, symbolises the sudden helplessness of floating through life she and her family felt, when being diagnosed. The balloon as well as the magnet letter typeface juxtapose her childhood naïveté and the sudden gravity of her medical situation.
I loved designing the look and feel of this project to adequately represent patients with type 1 diabetes, while educating those unaware of the concequences of this diagnosis. Together with Emily Tinsley's illustrations, we were able to come up with a digestable, yet impactful motion graphics piece that was enthusiastically welcomed by the JuvenileDiabetes Foundation.
Animation: Sonja Geracsek
Illustration: Emily Tinsley
Agency: The Fifth Business
