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| Left to Right: Base, Panic, Bipolar, Depression, Schizophrenia, Anxiety. |
I think I'm going to change a few things, but I'm satisfied with the result so far. For bipolar I might just completely redo it since I don't feel like I accurately represented it. For depression I was going for the idea of feeling completely drained all the time but I don't think it's coming across very well, I actually think what I have for anxiety would suit it better. Speaking of, I think I'm going to completely redo anxiety as well, since I don't think a storm is as fitting a representation for it as it was in my head when I was brainstorming (no pun intended). Schizophrenia I'm on the fence about, I had another idea for it originally which you can see in my sketches where a devil stickman is sitting on top of the brain because my uncle apparently had it, and my grandpa described his mental state to me as, "Like the devil was picking at his brain," but I decided not to go through with that one because I think it paints schizophrenia in a bit too negative a light. I'm still trying to figure out how to make my ADD and manic icons; I'm having a hard time making the ADD one look right and it's difficult to make nice scribbly lines in Illustrator for manic.
these are not icons. they require too much work to understand, to "get."
ReplyDeleteand dangerous to caricature mental/cognitive illnesses/diseases.
potentially, they are editorial cartoons/illustrations.
they can work only if accompanying a "story."
for example, a story about your uncle.
this is extremely tricky territory.
I don't think these work as icons, if by icons you mean a quickly gettable, uncomplicated stand-in for a word or concept.
so, what do mean as icons? how does an icon differ from a picture, or explanatory diagram?
and some concepts, particularly having to do with mental illness/disability, are not simple and not reducible to a visual shorthand, which thereby reduces the person having that disability, to shorthand.
ReplyDeletebe aware of Sara Hendren and her work, specifically her accessible icon project.
I would also follow her at @ablerism, as a way of tuning into discussions of and around disabilities.