Rheumatic Heart Disease Australia contracted Visual Obsession to design and develop a brochure/comic book to educate indigenous children, teenagers and young adults on the prevention of Rheumatic Heart Fever and Rheumatic Heart Disease. After research and brainstorming, Visual Obsession sketched and developed scenes and characters of varying ages (children, teens and adults) that could be used across different media. From there,the comic was scanned in and traced electronically using a tablet, and coloured using Adobe Illustrator (vector editing software).
The comic design had to be visually interesting, something that indigenous children and teens will PICK UP and WANT to read. The script and title had to be written in a format that accurately reflects the way indigenous children and teens communicate to each other e.g; “Nothin Deadly about a sore throat” means “Nothing good about a sore throat”. Their love of bright colours, their connection to their land and sea country and their love of laughter and humorous banter were all represented in the comic design through vibrant scenes and cheeky fun-loving characters. Indigenous focus groups were shown the comic design prior to print, which was met with positive feedback and unanimous approval. The comic books were printed and distributed to various hospitals/medical clinics across Queensland and the Cape.
