Friedman Center for Breast Cancer and Lymphatic Surgery

Branded website medical animation for a patient audience

Based in New York, the Friedman Center is a breast and lymphatic surgery clinic, whose specialism is breast cancer surgery and reconstruction. Their philosophy is to not only treat the disease but also to treat the person as a whole with a patient-centered focus. The psychological aspects of the cancer and treatment pathway are a key part of the services they offer and were a pivotal feature in our design choices.

The Friedman Center needed soft and accurate visuals for both their website as well as a patient-friendly animation that explained in a comforting way how reconstructive procedures were performed. This presented many challenges due to the sensitive and highly invasive nature of the surgeries.

We worked with the branding guidelines and developed images to give the client a sense of the look and feel of the designs we could create and how these would translate into the 3D images that they required.

Client
Friedman Center for Breast Cancer and Lymphatic Surgery

Artists
Annie Campbell
Susie Brighouse
Emily Holden

Utilizing the soft color pallettes, we reflected the look and feel of the Friedman Centres brand through animated soft flowing linework, creating gentle and warming illustrations with a safe and feminine appearance. The project also gave our team an opportunity to utilize our 3D design capabilities to accurately portray the various options for reconstructive surgery. Again, we wanted to carry through the same style and opted for muted tones on anatomical elements overlaid with soft skin on our models and avoiding realistic imagery that could potentially be construed as graphic and alarming to the clinic's many patients.

Visual Development

We’ve always found it useful to see the process of how other people create things. Here are some behind the scenes snippets and work in progress pieces that might be of interest to you.

If you want to learn more about our techniques for creating our content, check out our education channel Learn Medical Art.

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Step 1

Mood board development: based on Friedman Center's soft and feminine style, we set out to mirror the companies ethos and brand throughout the animation and include this in our 3D models that would be used in the animation.
Step 2

Storyboard development: The animation for this project was vitally important for communicating concisely some of the breast reconstruction options that may be available to patients at various stages of their cancer journey. The tone needed to be calm and reassuring and provide a clear narrative, to give patients an insight into the procedures and guide them in their conversations with their surgeon.
We developed a clear storyboard to help refine exactly how the procedures are carried out, simplifying concepts like over and under pectoral muscle breast implant placement and breast reconstruction from a patients own abdominal tissue.
Step 3

Animation production: Once the script had been finalised and a voice-over recorded, we could work our way through the shot list we developed from the storyboard to build the animation. Developing our 3D assets and testing lighting and shading along the way.

Like what you see?

We have a wide range of capabilities but it all circles around one thing, and that’s telling your science story. If you have an idea, reach out to us and we’ll try to use our skills to help or signpost you to the right people that can help.

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