VYVGART Up Close?

Client: Other Brother Studios / Argenx Pharmaceuticals
Credits:
Visual Development - Matthew Cook
Art Direction - Other Brother
Animation - Other Brother
Published: National informational ad campaign for web and trade shows.

VYVGART is the first FDA-approved treatment for adults with anti-AChR antibody positive generalized myasthenia gravis (gMG), an auto-immune disease in which the body’s immune system attacks muscle cells, causing symptoms of fatigue and a loss of muscle control.

For this project I was asked by the client to help create an engaging look for an informational advertisement that would help to explain what the disease is, and how Vyvgart helps to treat it’s symptoms. Through meetings with our talented director and animators at Other Brother, we developed an appealing look that could take this complex topic and make it more approachable. Because generalized myasthenia gravis can affect the eyesight of patients, we were also tasks with ensuring that the design of the animation and especially the selection of colors would make the content easy to see for lower vision viewers.

For the project I was responsible for creating:

• Developed character designs for the main human character, and character poses and expressions for the various body systems.

• Created a color script based on provided storyboards, showing the progression of color elements in each sequence.

• Designed and painted over 30 style frames which became backgrounds for all scenes of the animation.

Visual Development Artifacts

Panning background design with inserted characters. This single background was used for a long continuous panning shot.

Full final color script, showing each of the completed style frames. Each of these frames was then turned into the backgrounds for the final animation.

Human character model sheet, including character specs and a selection of key poses.

We wanted a simplified and stylized character that could represent a gMG patient. These patients are both male and female, and because of the disease can often put on a little weight. The character is designed to represent a generalized person who is a little stocky and highly simplified so that they will be easy for people with low vision to see. The poses and gestures make heavy use of large actions and pantomime to help make the character’s actions clear without the need for dialogue.

This sheet was provided to the animators as a basis for their hand-drawn animation.

Character design and pose sheet for good and bad Immunoglobulin G antibodies. These are elements of the patient’s immune system that can cause damage to muscle tissue.

Based on original character sketches by art director Stuart Bury.

Both Immunoglobulin G and the VYVGART molecule attach to surface of endothelial cells that line your blood vessels. They attach at receptors called FcRn, where they lock into place using a chemical bond. We decided to depict this bond in the form of a set of hugging arms that hold the IgG or VYVGART molecule in place. As you can see we explored a variety of arm poses before settling on one that communicated the idea clearly.

Body character design lineup. A big challenge of the project was creating a way to characterize the different parts of the immune system and medication within the body. Our art director Stuart Bury came up with a clever idea of overlying the basic shapes of these biological components with simple line drawings to give them some personality. I was asked to flesh out these designs and come up with a color palette that would help to make the components highly visible and convey their function.