During this period, my team developed over 24 animations, and more than 100 technical biological process illustrations, depicting the mechanisms of action of Lilly's pipeline molecules, for inclusion in both static and animated educational programmes.
Some of the highlights of this work are shown below, with some brief rationale regarding purpose and process.
With multiple animations being developed every year, much of the visual content was developed in speciality driven teams, focussing on a particular area of visual development. One of the advantages of being a team leader is to select particular sequences or animations to personally develop - setting the bar for the team to follow, and exploring or confirming technical or creative approach. Above is a selection of frames from the Lilly Oncology Pipeline MOA Animations - the Mechanism of Action of Chk1 Inhibitor, which I modelled, animated, textured, lit and rendered, defining the animation style, and visual "look and Feel" for subsequent work.
The MOA of Chk1 Inhibitor:
Below is a screen grab of Lilly Oncology's web-site (circa 2017) showing public access to their pipeline MOA animations developed by AS&K Visual Science, during my time as Director of Animation:
PROJECT CASE STUDY: EVOLVING AND REDESIGNING A VISUAL STYLE FOR LILLY ONCOLOGY
1: Background Research and Asset Design
All good design starts with understanding the framework into which your design work must fit. For the design of complex molecular animation assets, understanding and agreeing the known parameters for your component parts is a good way to start the design process
The above shows the known physical properties for the VEGFR-2 receptor, and some of its associated ligands. This illustration was used for both internal technical direction, and agreeing structure and relative scales with the client. No attempt is made to show proposed "look and feel", at this stage.
2: Following the Established Style
The layout below shows some of my first biological illustrations for Lilly Oncology - using the agreed assets developed during the research and development stage, and applying the established "look and feel" that the client was still reasonably happy with. Strong, saturated blues and reds dominated the palette, with colour applied somewhat randomly. I was comfortable with the accuracy of the shape and form of the content, but the render style has become somewhat dated - for now, it was design evolution rather than revolution.
I'm always happy to develop 3D artwork inline with an established style, or conforming to brand or style guidelines, whatever the brief specifies. Often, developing new artwork which is consistent with existing campaign content is key to a successful outcome.
However, when tasked by Lilly Oncology to develop a completely new way of illustrating molecular pathways interactions - simplifying and condensing the key information, but still delivering a scientifically accurate, impactful image - I embraced the opportunity.
3: Redefining the Visual Language
With a blank canvas to propose a visual style that would filter through all illustration and animation assets developed for years to come, I developed a range of visual styles for a single pathway (VEGFR-2), showing a varied approach to the information delivery, and look and feel.
Some of the concept artwork developed for Lilly Oncology to redefine the illustrative approach to explaining molecular pathways, and their associated cellular outcomes. A range of render styles from line-art to fully immersive 3D was proposed.
4: The Visual Solution
The new visual style brought in a monochrome palette, allowing easy use of colour for accenting and highlighting. The new approach included both a simplified diagrammatic pathway illustration, and a fully rendered, but minimal environment. This gave some flexibility on the client's requirement to include illustrations of the associated cells, and use an overall tint to define the area of research that the pipeline fell into. The chosen concept artwork was applied to a further ten pathway illustrations, ensuring the visual language was sophisticated enough to cover a broad range of molecular pathways, and cellular processes.
Only key information was included in the initial concept artwork, with an evolution on a traditional "pathway illustration" embedded within a magnified area of the cell surface. Icons were proposed to illustrate downstream cellular processes, with fully rendered content in the environment, echoing the end result.
Colour options were developed to help group the 32 proposed illustrations into specific areas of research
The new visual style was rolled out over a further ten concept pathways illustrations, allowing further development of the visual language
Of course, finalizing the visual style of the concept artwork is only the start of job, rolling it out over multiple animations and illustrations, for online, event and educational purposes, in multiple languages and formats is the bulk of the work !
5: Roll-out and Current Use
The visual assets developed from my concept artwork are currently being used by Lilly Oncology in a range of static and animated content, throughout their website and at a range of global Oncology events (ASCO, ESMO etc).
The p13k mTOR Pathway animation below was one of the first developed to follow the new visual style
Please find below a selection of final artwork depicting the mode of action of various pipeline molecules that Lilly Oncology are presently investigating for future cancer treatments. All of these images were available from Lilly Oncology at the time of writing.
