WHAM Campaign
Historically, women have been excluded from medical science. Most advances we have seen come from male doctors and scientists studying male humans and animals. As a result, there is a large gap in our understanding of women’s health.
This social campaign aims to spread awareness about the consequences of this gap and to inspire people to take action. It would be sponsored by Women’s Health Access Matters (WHAM), an organization that works to promote dialogue and accelerate funding for women’s health research.
Apps used: Illustrator, After Effects
Process
The first plan of attack was figuring out a way to present this information in a way that is both digestible and eye-catching to a general audience. As the main vessel for spreading this campaign is social media, it needed to be able to grab one’s attention quickly. Gender bias in the medical field is an issue that many are unfamiliar with, so having the main focus be on imagery may be confusing for those who aren’t already well acquainted. At the same time, a huge wall of text explaining medical intricacies wouldn’t pull people in. It was decided that a short yet shocking statistic would be the best route. The tagline, “Underrepresentation Kills”, was chosen because it stresses the gravity of the situation in a succinct, direct manner.
The final look resembles a layered letterpress print. This is not only to distance the campaign from looking too clinical, but also to use layers to demonstrate this idea: men dominate, and women recede. Women are constantly overshadowed in medical research. In the same way, the red type falls into the background, while the blue ink dominates the page. If we don’t leave enough space for both genders, the end product will always end up more blue than purple.
