N/A: disease awareness

Gout is a disease caused by too much uric acid. And it causes more than pain. It eats through bones and causes corrosive damage throughout the body. Uric acid damage is often overlooked by doctors, yet it catastrophically destroys patients’ bodies and lives.

It was time to take gout and uric acid out of the textbooks and put it directly in front of doctors to defy any expectations their training had ingrained in them.

Our objective: Unnerve rheumatologists and nephrologists by demonstrating the toxic effects of uric acid in order to change perceptions, alter their treatment approach and show them the disease like never before.

TOXIC PORTRAITS is a first-of-its-kind experiment that demonstrates gout’s corrosive damage using the very substance that causes it.

Working with 3 artists and 2 printmakers, we created uric customized acid mixtures, based on the amount of uric acid found in the blood of three gout patients. Then in a new spin on an old printmaking tradition, we used the mixture to corrode copper plates to create prints.

Three artistic approaches were selected for the plates and prints: line drawing to show the deep bites uric acid takes of metal, splatter effect for the chaos uric acid can cause, and light-to-dark cross-hatching to parallel the darkening path that excess uric acid puts a patient on.

Logos and lettering featured a dripping, oozing font. Text was positioned awkwardly to communicate the disruptive nature of uric acid and gout.

The art direction illustrated 1 essential truth: the pure anguish and toxicity of gout.

Horizon Therapeutics develops treatments for rare diseases, including uncontrolled gout, and is driven by a clear purpose: to make a meaningful improvement in patients’ lives. TOXIC PORTRAITS takes an entirely different approach to uncontrolled gout by focusing not on the disease but on its toxic source: uric acid.

We updated the centuries-old artistic process of copper plate etching by using actual uric acid as a reactant to eat through the plates. In showing the corrosive impact of gout’s main ingredient, we are updating the conversation about the true burden of the disease.

Healthcare/pharmaceutical communications in the United States are governed by the Food and Drug Administration’s Office of Prescription Drug Promotion.

TOXIC PORTRAITS targets rheumatologists and nephrologists and compels them to rethink their approach to treating gout. Raw patient emotion alone is seldom enough to change treatment behavior; but seeing the hard science of uric acid corroding the metal plates of patient portraits changes the treatment conversation.