Grant Illustrations

Project Overview

Client: Dr. Stephen Scherer, The Hospital for Sick Children
Industry: academia
Audience: government executives
Type: grant proposal illustration
Tools: Procreate, Adobe Illustrator
Date: January 2025

A series of illustrations created for the SickKids Research Institute application for the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) Innovation Fund, a highly competitive grant program for research strategy. These illustrations were used to emphasize and highlight different aspects of the application, including the hospital infrastructure, clinical care, patient support, faculty appointments, and research programs that support the SickKids strategic vision of precision child health.

Design Solution

Concept
The core concept of the illustration focused on visualizing how infrastructure bridges the different parts of the SickKids ecosystem. The narrative connects the hospital, patient support center, and research tower to show how patients, clinicians, and researchers are linked through shared systems and facilities. This concept was informed by the SickKids 2022-2025 institutional strategy documents and aligned with existing SickKids imagery to ensure consistency with prior communications while elevating the impact of this particular proposal.

Drafts
During the ideation phase, I developed multiple concepts, from more metaphorical and whimsical storytelling approaches to more formal and direct interpretations of the SickKids infrastructure concept being described in the proposal. One consistent visual across all variations was the infinity loop, representing the continuous feedback cycle of how clinical care informs discovery and how research advances patient outcomes. In addition to the primary illustration, I drafted supplementary visual assets to support other sections of the application. While not all of the assets were ultimately included in the final submission, this was essential to the process of refining the strongest visual direction for the application.

Iteration
The selected draft concept then underwent several rounds of iteration in collaboration with the research grant application leadership. Throughout this process, I refined the illustration, adjusting the composition, rendering details, and modifying the text to add clarity to the visual narrative. An additional detail featuring a globe was added to highlight the international reach and global influence of the research being conducted from SickKids in Toronto, Canada.

Final Product and Outcome
The final series of illustrations were submitted as part of the SickKids grant application to the Canadian Foundation for Innovation where it anchored the executive summary and reinforced key messages throughout the document. The illustrations helped reviewers quickly understand the long-term impact of SickKids’ research infrastructure, supporting a compelling case for future research and health care investment.

Find the final illustrations and affiliated visuals below!