annual report
“facing diabetes:
everyone's inthe picture”
American diabetes association


While at Nichols & Duncan, I had the distinct pleasure to work with the American Diabetes Association. In the United States, nearly 8% of the population have diabetes. The money raised by the Association funds research, information programs, and advocacy efforts.

At the beginning of 2003 the Association developed the theme “Facing Diabetes: Everyone’s in the Picture.” Our challenge, in designing that year’s Annual Report, was to illustrate that theme to the ADA’s board and sponsors. We pitched an idea that the client was very excited about — using portraits of ADA staff to build a larger portrait that represented the 24 million Americans with diabetes.

I took our digital camera and set-up an informal photo studio at the client’s national offices in Alexandria and spent an afternoon shooting photos of ADA staffers. Next, I created a grid of these headshots and composited them in such a way as to reveal the cropped face of an ambiguously ethnic woman — representing increased risk to women, and the wide minority segment that is disprportionately affected by diabetes.

The Annual Report received great compliments. The client loved it, and the cover won Gold in the League of American Communications Professionals’ 2003 Vision Awards.

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