Primary Gout

Date

November 2016

Supervisor

Professor Shelley Wall,

Biomedical Communications

Media

Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Photoshop

About

This piece is designed to be a two-page spread in a popular science magazine. It discusses the origins, development of, epidemiology of, and features of acute and chronic forms of primary gout, as well as the cycle of inflammation in gout.

Challenge

For this project, students tend to create immersive environments depicting their pathological process that are mostly at one scale. However, in order to show a complete picture of the condition, I wanted to represent the pathology at multiple scales (anatomical, microscopic, and molecular) and integrate them into a cohesive whole.

Solution

I started with the traditional immersive environment approach but began to design from a blank slate once it became clear that this style would not meet my needs satisfactorily.

I turned instead to a more diagrammatic approach. This way, the three main components (introduction and cause, steps of an acute attack, and acute versus chronic condition) can be attended to individually at the scale at which they are best demonstrated. The joint and foot images are tied together visually by the curve of the blood vessel in the acute attack diagram.