Course illustrations: Part 2
I was tasked by Region Stockholm with creating illustrations for a digital parental support course for parents with ADHD. The illustrations were published on 1177.se, which is a Swedish website providing information, advice, and services in health and care.
The purpose of the illustrations was to reinforce the message of the text and to reduce the text-heavy nature of the layout, making it easier for readers to engage with. Therefore, the client wanted the illustrations to be clear, easy to understand, and infused with a touch of humor.
The client commissioned illustrations on the themes of 'Micro-breaks in everyday life', 'Essential vs non-essential demands', and 'Overload of directives'.
1: Micro-breaks in everyday life
This illustration accompanies a text describing the importance of taking micro-breaks in everyday life as a parent, along with tips on how to do so.
I discussed with the client various ideas for illustrating a good example of a micro-break, which proved to be challenging. Therefore, we opted for a humorous approach, depicting a parent attempting (albeit unsuccessfully) to take a micro-break, aiming to capture a situation that many parents can likely relate to.
First sketch
🗨️ Client feedback
The client was mostly satisfied but suggested a narrower format, focusing more on the mother in the bathroom and the door. They also felt that the message could be made clearer by adding headphones to the mother, which I thought was a great idea!
Final illustration
2: Essential vs non-essential demands
As a parent, there's often a lot to address. This text focused on learning to distinguish between situations where directives are more crucial versus less crucial. The parents in the course were prompted to contemplate and write a few lines about which behaviors exhibited by the children in the image they would address and which they wouldn't.
Together with the client, I brainstormed some more or less disruptive behaviors that children might exhibit around a dinner table, including fighting and picking their nose.
First sketch
🗨️ Client feedback
This illustration originally contained many different elements, and more needed to be added. The client suggested that the child at the front of the image could be standing up, allowing for the removal of a chair and some clutter. Additionally, the client wanted to see more mess, such as spills and undesirable behaviors, and requested a kitchen background. They also felt that the children could have more exaggerated facial expressions to add humor to the image, a suggestion I was happy to accommodate.
Final illustration
3: Overload of directives
The client's research indicates that parents, on average, give their children 17 directives every half hour, which this illustration aimed to depict.
The client envisioned a scenario where a parent, preoccupied with something else, simultaneously issues directives in the form of wordless speech bubbles to a bewildered or resigned child. Together, we brainstormed which icons could be used to illustrate common examples of things a parent might address, such as doing homework, putting away shoes, limiting screen time, and so on.
First sketch
🗨️ Client feedback
The client wished for me to clarify that the book in the speech bubble was a textbook while the book the child was holding wasn't, perhaps a comic book. Instead of separate speech bubbles, we agreed that overlapping them would reduce visual clutter. The client also felt that the father looked a bit too cheerful, which didn't entirely align with the message of the text. We made some additional adjustments to the speech bubbles to make the message clearer.
Final illustration
