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2022 One Show - Print

Lil Sugar – Master of Disguise

Agency Area 23, An IPG Health Company / New York + HIP HOP PUBLIC HEALTH / New York + Canja Audio Culture / Curitiba + ZOMBIE STUDIOS / Sao Paolo

Client Hip Hop Public Health
BACK TO RESULTS

Annual ID

OS22_PT013S

About the Work

BACKGROUND: Added sugar is in most packaged foods, but it goes by 150+ obscure names, worsening the nutritional knowledge gap in the already disadvantaged black communities and contributing to the obesity epidemic.

The Lil Sugar campaign uses rap, storytelling, and gaming to make nutrition literacy fun and turn kids and parents into bona fide sugar experts.

Lil Sugar is more than the embodiment of sugar; it is the personification of decades of misinformation and duplicity when it comes to clearly informing people about sugar’s presence in packaged products. The Lil Sugar book illustrations capture this fact with tons of attention to detail.

The illustrations in the book were painted with gouache, made with a mixture of powdered pigment suspended in gum arabic and honey, which are 2 forms of sugar. Each page is filled with a colorful and detailed background, yet never too busy so it doesn't steal the page attention from the character. The book is visually accessible to readers both young and old alike and carries with it a sense of whimsical, colorful fun, just like Lil Sugar itself.

The color palette is inspired by vibrant and powerful colors of the traditional candy shop universe.

Whimsical at first glance, each disguise is actually the result of careful research into the cultural and historical relationship between sugar and culture. Molasses, for example, has been used to make rum for centuries, so we decided to make him a pirate captain.

Every character name has their own individual handmade typography and style, adding the exact amount of freedom and wackiness to these very concise art direction guidelines.