Leeds Beckett University - City Campus,
Woodhouse Lane,
LS1 3HE
World Obesity Day: Our Approach to Addressing Obesity
Leeds School of Arts and Obesity Institute
As a studio Field are interested in projects and ideas that challenge how we understand and communicate societal complexities. For nearly 15 years, we have worked with academics, arts institutions, and educational providers to communicate complex problems across multiple mediums including: The Royal College, The Science Museum Group, multiple Russell Group universities. All these organisations share a common goal – they are aiming to punctuate complex ideas and concepts in simple and digestible formats, where research and development needs to get its message across in a digestible manner. At Field, we thrive on these problems and deliver solutions across digital, moving image and spatial design to weave those difficult narratives into an appropriate solution.
There is always an air of excitement when an ambitious brief comes into the studio, where the subject matter challenges how to communicate the idea of being human without the need to represent the human form. What an amazing opportunity for a team of creatives to orbit their ideas around. The brief from Obesity Institute asked us to represent the idea of how Obesity is viewed in the public domain and challenge the long-standing perceptions that Obesity is a self-inflicted condition and not a chronic disease.
So how do you go about representing a human narrative without getting into the intricacy of the human form? For us it was a case of how we make shapes and motion represent society without the necessity of drawing and animating people, this is as complexed as the communication challenge itself. Our approach involved creating a set of shapes and forms that loosely represent society, we’re all different shapes and sizes but we’re equally all distinct personalities, with our own characteristics. Our aim was to let personality shine through at the same time as making a personable connection to the shapes and forms used within the animation. Our methods involved bringing loose facial features to the forms whilst avoiding any suggestions that these forms were in any way gendered, this allowed us to focus on the core messages of bias, change, stigma, and care.
“Obesity is a sensitive subject to illustrate so I leaned into making the characters completely abstract and focusing on the motion/movement of the shapes to evoke the ideas of change/stigma etc. For subjects like care and support I stayed away from literal illustrations and used large type supported by the background shapes, so it felt intentional and direct.”
Jasmine Forbes, Lead designer and animator.
We delivered a 1-minute animation with a voiceover that communicated all of the key aspects of Obesity and the communication challenges we face as a society. The animation was used to support Leeds Beckett’s World Obesity Day conference on the 3rd March 2023
@fielddotstudio (https://www.instagram.com/fielddotstudio/)
Jonathan Briggs
Jonny is a Senior Lecturer at Leeds Beckett University, teaching on the Graphic Arts and Design undergraduate programme and Creative Director and Owner of Field Design.
