ABOUT

This is the story of how the visceral power of design made the world wince in empathy with sufferers of Ehlers Danlos Syndrome by visualising their invisible pain for all to feel.
Whilst a flexible body is often considered a gift, for Ehlers Danlos Syndrome sufferers (EDS) it means chronic, even life-limiting pain through regular joint dislocation, skin scarring, organ fragility and debilitating fatigue.

The problem is that the pain and damage their hyperflexibility causes is largely invisible. Gaslighting causes further suffering. “But you look normal”, “You’re a hypochondriac.” Even GPs lack awareness of EDS meaning the average diagnosis takes 10 years!
Our goal was to get EDS on society’s radar with a poster campaign and Christmas single to raise awareness among undiagnosed sufferers GPs, and the wider public, helping people understand that hyper flexibility could be EDS.

CREATIVE CHALLENGE
We needed to lay bare the painful truth behind hyperflexibility but when visualised, it can look like a superpower, more commonly associated with Olympic gymnasts. The breakthrough came from the desperation expressed by one sufferer; ‘See me, feel me, hear me, recognise EDS.’
Our design needed to have visceral impact to help people finally ‘see sufferers’ by ‘feeling their otherwise invisible pain’.

Here comes the science:
People’s instinct is to look away from other’s pain because it feels painful. This can be attributed to our mirror neurones which enable us to feel what other people are going through.

CREATIVE SOLUTION
We asked sufferers to describe the type of pain they felt to give us a sense of how we might visualise it. Their descriptions were so graphic it not only gave us a strong sense of what we needed to capture but also the words express it.
Working with photographer Kristina Varaksina we set out to capture the rawness, openness, and vulnerability they expressed, and then used CGI to visualise the pain described in their quotes. Natural skin tones and textures were then remapped onto the images.
The hauntingly beautiful images were used across the campaign touch points from print to poster, record sleeve to digital media.
Incredibly, the campaign was gifted 5 minutes of rush-hour takeover of the Piccadilly Lights the largest advertising display in Europe where TEM-PLE hosted the launch event for the Christmas single to accompany the campaign. It also appeared on the UK’s tallest screen, The Axis Tower in Manchester.

RESULTS
The campaign site received an estimated 29K views and was picked up by publications around the world with a combined audience of 726K.

Most importantly, the campaign has had a positive impact on the lives of sufferers who feel ‘seen’ for the first time and hopeful of what greater awareness may bring.
Our own primary research confirmed ‘seeing is feeling’ with over 73% of respondents (from a survey of 157 adults) claiming they could ‘almost feel the pain of the sufferers’ in the images.

It’s just a start but we’ve finally unlocked the invisible suffering of EDS for all to feel.