Public Health Wales: HIV Today

Project Background

We worked with Public Health Wales to create an informative and empowering animation, encouraging Welsh residents to get tested for HIV through Public Health Wales’s at-home testing kit scheme, or by agreeing to be tested during routine bloodwork appointments.

The aims of the animation are to de-stigmatise the condition of HIV and to educate the viewer through accessible, factually accurate explanations of how HIV can be prevented and managed, as well as how it can be transmitted in the first place.

The viewer should also be able to ‘see themselves’ within the characters of the film, further encouraging them to consider their own sexual health and wellbeing – even if initially they may have believed they would not qualify as being part of an at-risk group.

Creating the artwork

Something we always bear in mind when creating the artwork for our films is inclusion and diversity. Each animation’s art is custom-made to suit the brief, so we made sure to include a wide range of characters that the audience could identify with and which also might challenge some of their pre-conceived ideas about HIV.

Language accessibility

It was, of course, important to ensure that the great messages this animation promotes would be accessible to everybody in Wales who might come across it. We created an English language and a Welsh language version of the film, translating all onscreen text and the subtitles, and sourced Welsh language voiceover artists.

By including the Welsh translations as part of the final packaged animations, the potential reach of both the film and the message it carries is opened up to a much wider audience.

Information accessibility

Public Health Wales needed to share information with both the general public and healthcare professionals. While there was some specific information that was different for these audiences, there was also a lot of overlap.

To accommodate this, we created two versions of the same animation: a public-facing version with user-friendly language and visuals, and a version tailored to clinical staff, including accurate medical terminology and recognisable clinical imagery.

This adaptation of the same film gives the client an animation for each audience without incurring the full cost of making two separate animations.