Progress and Transformation in Cystic Fibrosis Care

Cystic Fibrosis Foundation / 2019 / Global & Public Health

A screen capture from an animated video that Graphicacy produced for the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

Overview

Graphicacy partnered with the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) to visually communicate the amazing results of their Care Model in extending the lives of cystic fibrosis patients. Our aim was to create an engaging and emotionally resonant video that conveys a message of hope to patients and their families, while also speaking to data-driven clinicians and researchers.

Launch Project

Services
Data Visualization
Ideation & Prototyping
Information Design
Motion Graphics & Animation

Background and Challenge

The mission of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation (CFF) is expansive and bold: to cure cystic fibrosis (CF) and to provide all people with CF the opportunity to lead long, fulfilling lives by funding research and drug development, partnering with the CF community, and advancing high-quality, specialized care. The progress that they’ve made in partnership with doctors, scientists, caregivers, and the cystic fibrosis community in a single generation could be considered “one of the most amazing stories in medicine today.” It was time to tell that story.

The challenge of this particular project was to distill decades of data, history, and medical research into just over one minute of video. Somehow, we had to tell a complex story in a simple and engaging visual form. It had to be realistic, friendly, and “human” while carrying a message of evidence-based hope and possibility, celebrating progress, and staying rock solid in terms of the data presented and any claims made. The video’s audience would range from people who had intimately suffered from or cared for those with this challenging disease all the way to globally recognized scientists and researchers who had dedicated their life’s work to finding a cure.

Opportunity and Solution

This video was commissioned to serve as the preamble to the keynote speaker’s address at the annual North American CFF convention. Following its debut, the video would live on the organization’s website, be shared across social media, and reach less familiar audiences through marketing outreach.

Working closely with the CFF team, Graphicacy and our partner, Noisy Neighbor, approached this project through an in-depth discovery process with CFF, followed by iterative rounds of data review, storyboarding, visual design, and animation. We had to make sure that at each step of the process, we were capturing the right historical context, key data, and level of complexity, as well as appropriate photos, visual style, and overall tone to meet the needs of its many intended audiences. For this project, it was important to create and carefully review an animatic (rough visual preview of the animation) to feel fully confident before going into final animating and editing. The result was an informative, inspiring, heartfelt and data-driven video that pointed the way to future progress in the effort to bring greater longevity and quality of life to the CFF community.