EDS Society Awareness Campaign

Student Project

Campaign
Illustrator
InDesign
A playful yet impactful awareness campaign for a new Ottawa Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome (EDS) chapter, designed to demystify a complex condition through accessible, youth-oriented visual storytelling. This project uses bright, game-inspired graphics and clear, empathetic messaging to communicate the realities of delayed diagnosis while empowering the local EDS community with visibility, education, and support. As someone who lives with EDS, this project became both a design challenge and a personal act of advocacy.

The Challenge

EDS is widely misunderstood, underdiagnosed, and often dismissed — especially among younger people seeking answers for long-standing symptoms. The challenge was to create a campaign that felt inviting, digestible, and culturally relevant without minimizing medical seriousness.

The Ottawa chapter needed a visual system that could capture attention, explain the issue quickly, and resonate emotionally across posters, postcards, and social media. For me, the challenge was also rooted in lived experience: I know firsthand how exhausting the diagnostic journey can be. The campaign needed to validate that reality while offering hope, clarity, and connection.

Process

Building a System That Speaks With Empathy

Research into patient experiences, diagnostic delays, and community needs revealed a consistent theme: for many, the journey to diagnosis feels like navigating an unpredictable game. That insight shaped the conceptual direction and informed the entire visual language.

Three game-based metaphors became the foundation of the campaign:

  • Board Game – representing the obstacle-filled, winding path to diagnosis.
  • Bingo – highlighting how symptoms and misdiagnoses often feel random and disconnected.
  • Jenga – conveying how unstable and precarious the diagnostic process can be, with one piece shifting everything.

Each visual direction was paired with short, punchy headlines. These were crafted to be memorable, shareable, and emotionally resonant while remaining clear and factual.

Through iterative sketching, layout development, and colour exploration, the campaign evolved into a cohesive visual system aimed at younger audiences.

Result

Bringing the pieces together with purpose

The final campaign combines bold illustration with straightforward messaging to create an accessible, visually cohesive system built around metaphor and clarity. The playful game visuals draw viewers in, while the supporting copy emphasizes lived experience, validation, and awareness.

Across posters, postcards, and Instagram carousels, the campaign supports the Ottawa chapter’s mission to reduce diagnostic delays and increase awareness of EDS in the community. It succeeds by balancing approachability with honesty, being playful enough to engage while serious enough to inform, and cohesive across both print and digital formats.

This project was also personally meaningful. Designing from lived experience challenged me to translate frustration into purpose, using visual storytelling to advocate for a condition that often goes unseen. Feedback emphasized the campaign’s clarity, relatability, and polished execution, reinforcing the value of designing with both strategy and empathy.

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