Locked in with the Key
American Journal of Bioethics Cover September 2023
Project Overview
Summary
The American Journal of Bioethics was seeking a cover to represent the feature article titled "Neurologic Diseases and Medical Aid in Dying: Aid-in-Dying Laws Create an Underclass of Patients Based on Disability." The article describes the legal obstacles in the way of medical aid-in-dying laws for those who are not physically able to take the medication due to their disease.
Problem
-
Find a way to visualize the central ethical issue of the article.
- Ensure it aligns with clients' preferences and goals.
Audience
Biomedical professionals and readers of the American Journal of Bioethics between 25-65.
Project Limitations
-
Must have ample space for text
-
Must be designed for print
Process
Prompt introduction and ideation
The Bioethics publishing team was seeking a cover for the headline "How Aid-in-Dying Laws Create An Underclass of Patients Based on Disability". Having family members with neurodegenerative diseases, I was immediately drawn to this topic.
With any initial ideation process, I like to create a word cloud. Here I'll follow ideas like a trail. From this one, I found the ideas of "depths" and "trapped" to be the most compelling in terms of potential visuals and representative of the article.
Sketches
Now with a general idea in mind, I created three different stories. Each illustrated a different idea of being trapped in the depths.
Locked in the Key, the chosen composition, inadvertently was a combination of the two. The center image depicts a patient locked in a glass box; their illness visible to everyone. Floating deeper in space, the patient's only way out is through the key locked inside. This is an allusion to the impossible and disadvantageous situation the Aid-in-Dying laws put neurodegenerative patients in.
Style Ideation
With any illustration, I typically have a mood board. I like to use it as a visual word bank, pushing my creative boundaries and ideas. In it I'll include shapes, colors, textures, and other illustrations that align with my vision and sketches. I find it fascinating how many interpretations for the same concepts there can be.
For these illustrations, I aimed for a soft, vulnerable style to counterbalance the heavy theme while drawing more attention to the patient's humanity. Though I planned on creating it digitally, I envisioned a hand-drawn quality with visible texture, reminiscent of chalk or pencil. A small portion of my mood board is featured.
Composition and Color
In a typical flow, I would outline a sketch and block in color. However, I really wanted to experiment with texture and color with this illustration. I allowed myself to develop a few arrangements while testing color palettes. In these I also tested different characters and space elements.
Initial Cover
Here's the initial cover I settled on. Initially, I thought I captured the textured, whimsical innocence I was aiming for. However, it still felt incomplete. I realized it lacked the sense of space I wanted to convey. There was an excess of texture and elements that obscured the vastness that was central to my visual message. So, I paused, reevaluated, and considered what is essential to the piece and what could be culled.
Revised Cover
In the revised version, I took away a lot of the excess texture and supporting drawings. I chose to focus on the main figure, highlighting the isolation of their situation. Incorporating a flashlight symbolized their need for assistance in this impossible situation. Overall, it now more effectively conveys the feelings of isolation, confinement, and the urgent need for help that the patients are experiencing under current laws.
