Want some hard hitting creative? Try a cartoon.

Recently, we were given the challenge of creating an emergency Direct Mail piece for Medicins Sans Frontiere (MSF), highlighting the malnutrition crisis, and the charity’s response to it in the Lake Chad region of Africa.

The situation in the region is terrible. And complicated. Hundreds of thousands, displaced because of war are forced into refugee camps. Woman are at risk of sexual violence. Disease is a constant threat. Food is scarce and malnourishment is common. Children are at particular risk.

The creative team wanted to show the reality of the situation. But as it was an emergency, there wasn’t much photography available. And anyway, many of the things they wanted to show would be unpalatable, even to MSF’s reality-hardened supporters.

They hit upon the idea of using a graphic novel style and produced an 8-page booklet, hand drawn in fine liner and shaded with grey in Photoshop by our in-house illustrator. The piece tells one MSF doctor’s experiences of her time working in a medical project in the Lake Chad region.

The graphic style allowed the team to bring incidents to life that they never would have been able to in photography; either because those images don’t exist or if they did because they would be too shocking to use.

We’re all really happy with the result here at Flourish Towers, as is the client. It’s just gone out so we don’t know if it will get the charity’s supporters reaching into their pockets. But early feedback has been extremely positive, so we’re quietly confident.