How can an image communicate a serious subject without relying on the most obvious visual language?

How can you illustrate a chronic condition without making the illness the whole story?

This was the question behind Living Well with Chronic Kidney Disease, a personal editorial illustration inspired by a 2022 article from Clover Health Magazine.

People living with chronic kidney disease are often represented through clinical imagery. I wanted to take a different approach and focus on everyday life instead.

Rather than illustrating the kidneys as anatomical organs, I transformed them into a living landscape.

Within this landscape, everyday activities become part of the visual story. Walking represents daily movement, cycling suggests physical activity, sailing creates a moment of calm, while spending time in nature connects the different elements of wellbeing.

The idea was not to suggest that lifestyle choices can simply “solve” a chronic condition. Instead, I wanted to show how small, consistent habits can become part of living well with one.

For me, this is one of the interesting challenges of editorial illustration: how can an image communicate a serious subject without relying on the most obvious visual language?

With health topics especially, I’m interested in finding images that feel human rather than clinical, and that leave room for something beyond the diagnosis.

This project was an experiment in doing exactly that.

Gabriella