The Dispensary of Hope is a not for profit program helping to provide access to medications for those, who for lack of insurance coverage or income, lack access. The Medco Foundation, as a supporter of the program, asked me to create illustrations of helium balloons carrying a red box labeled with the Hope logo. The art would be used in promoting the program via print, collateral, and on the web. Due to the various usage sizes we needed to paint two separate images. The one above was used in formats about as opposite as you can get; web presentation and as a large format, 46” wide, wall cling. The piece below was for print and point of purchase usage, including a tabletop pop up tent card.

One of the client’s major concerns was that the balloons be relatively consistent in size and shape, yet show a realistic interaction. In other words this could not simply be a cloned grouping of colorful balloon shapes. So I was careful to add cast shadows along with the rendered balloon forms to add depth. A bit of see-through transparency, and a few reflections here and there, helped the overall presentation as well. The red box art was supplied by the client in a vector format, so some tweaks were added to give it dimension. Strings were done as separate layers and shaded to coincide with the balloon’s light source. And yes, there is a string for every balloon. Count them and see.

The illustrations were a big success and it was a pleasure to work with Medco to provide artwork for such a great cause.