Alcohol & Drug Education Illustrations
Illustrations for down to earth, non-sensational, and honest drug education talks that get through to a teen audience.
Client: DARTA (Drug & Alcohol Research and Training Australia)
Year: 2017-2019
Medium: India ink & digital colour.
Context: DARTA delivers down to earth, non-sensational, youth-oriented alcohol & other drug talks to students all across Australia and needed exclusive illustrations tailored to their content.
The process
Brief: I was asked to provide illustrations that would match key beats in DARTA talks, whilst suiting their fine balance between a humourous and serious tone. Various DARTA projects take a different focus (the recovery position, alcohol poisoning, when to call an ambulance, legal issues, and so on). The ones on this page are concerned with the toxicity of party drugs following a spate of serious overdoses in early 2019; and a series examining alcohol’s effect on the developing brain.
Approach: For each round of illustrations, I work closely with the staff of DARTA to ensure that, first, I understand the content they will be explaining to their audiences with the help of my illustrations. We work up a series of pencil roughs to test for content, composition and tone, and to help the DARTA staff visualise new solutions to simplifying complex messages. The final work is drawing with ink, before scanning and adding colour digitally.
Results: DARTA use the illustrations in their slide presentations, and on social media accounts. Having custom created illustration ensures complex explanations can be simplified with step-through imagery, and also provides a real point of difference with exclusive imagery that the audience won’t have seen elsewhere.