Case Study: World Humanitarian Day. Illustrations and Video for United Nations

One of the factors that make us humans is the ability to experience empathy and sympathy and get united facing dangers and problems. Today’s story about one of our recent illustration and motion design projects is all about that. Welcome to check the set of digital artworks which tubik artists created for World Humanitarian Day, a campaign by OCHA, the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, that works to ensure humanitarian organizations have the information and resources they need to deliver vital assistance effectively.

Project and Idea

On 19 August 2003, a bomb attack on the Canal Hotel in Baghdad, Iraq, killed 22 humanitarian aid workers. Five years later, the United Nations General Assembly designated 19 August as World Humanitarian Day (WHD). Each year, it focuses on a theme, bringing together partners from across the humanitarian system to advocate for the survival, well-being, and dignity of people affected by crises and for the safety and security of aid workers.

This year, for WHD, OCHA strived to show the importance, effectiveness, and positive impact of humanitarian work under the motto “It takes a village.” The story behind the motto is explained in detail:

There is an old saying that it takes a village to raise a child. Similarly, it takes a village to support a person in a humanitarian crisis with urgent health care, shelter, food, protection, water, and much more. An entire humanitarian community made up of local volunteers, emergency services, NGOs, the Red Cross, and the UN, is their support network. It takes a village to provide people in crisis with the support they need.

The organization approached the tubik team with the request to create a collection of illustrations visualizing the idea in a big bunch of artistic episodes devoted to the diversity of specialists supporting people in dangerous or problematic areas worldwide. They intended to use a series of beautifully illustrated aid worker profiles to showcase the breadth and depth of humanitarian work, demonstrate the needs of crisis-affected communities, key challenges, and how the work helps people in need. So, they strived to get the pack of conceptual illustrations in bright colors to set the powerful visual storytelling and show aid workers intertwined in a surrealist way with the job they do and how people are helped. Also, furtherly, the illustrations were intended to be transformed into an animated video sharing the idea of World Humanitarian Day and paying tribute to the outstanding efforts of humanitarian workers and volunteers.

The creative team for the project from the tubik side included Sergii Valiukh, Yaroslava Yatsuba, Marina Solomennikova, Sasha Mihalik, Kirill Erokhin, and Anastasiia Iliashevych.

Illustrations

The creative search, discussions, and digital painting process resulted in a pack of vibrant and informative illustrations reflecting a variety of characters and jobs done by humanitarian workers. The artworks had to be emotional and multicolored, featuring different essential details that helped to set the instant connection with the job done and the kind of support provided by a particular aid worker. In creating them, artists had to consider the factor of graphic flexibility as images had to be adapted to different formats and look good in different environments, for example, a website, social networks, or animated video.

Before developing the whole set, it was important to set up the general approach of the style and agree upon it. We worked on it on the basis of the illustration featuring the teacher’s job, going from sketching and composition to color combinations, details, and formatting.

After having defined the general visual style and design approach, the team worked in tight communication with the client on all the pack of illustrations, using the sketching phase to agree upon details and composition and then wrapping it into bright colors and artistic performance. Take a look at some of them.

Health worker illustration development

Counselor illustration process

Negotiator illustration process

Negotiator illustration development

Working on each illustration, the artists had to consider the composition that would make the artwork easily adapted to different formats and integrate the logo effectively, be it an animated video, Instagram, Twitter or Facebook posting, social advertising banner, or whatever objective could arise. For instance, that’s how it worked in the rectangular format for video production and square format for Instagram posting.

Let’s take a closer look at some of the final artworks from the project.

Title illustration: it takes a village to provide people in crisis with the support they need

Health worker

Data analyst

Education worker

Water specialist

Negotiator

Truck driver

Advisor

Emergency responder

Donors

Shelter specialist

Advocate

Counselor

Protection officer

If you want to dive deeper into the illustration process, here’s a sneak peek at creating one of the illustrations, from sketching an idea to polishing the details.

Video

After the illustration pack was fully approved, the team moved to the next stage, which meant breathing life into images and turning them into a bright animated video promoting the idea and values of World Humanitarian Day 2022. Here’s the video production result.

For our team, this project was another chance to check the power of teamwork and our artists’ flexibility of skills which allowed us to work fast in tight deadline conditions on an extensive collection of illustrations and video production, keeping a united, consistent style.

New case studies are coming soon; stay tuned!

Check more of our artworks in the Tubik Arts portfolio.