Sodium Valproate Leaflet - A Collaboration with NHS Wales

This project was done as a collaboration between myself and the talented illustrators Polly Allburn, Tayebeh Rahmani and Madison Osborne.

In March 2024 we were commissioned by NHS Wales to collaborate on a leaflet for the drug Sodium Valproate, meant as a tool to help inform the patient about the drug, its side effects and to help come to a shared decision with their GP.

This leaflet is especially important for uterus having adults, since taking Sodium Valproate during pregnancy can come with many complications.

It became clear to us that this was a topic that needed to be handled sensitively and with utmost care. All of us did different things and different steps of the process, some of us worked digitally and others preferred traditional work. I had the honour and privilege to be in charge of the last step, taking everyone's work on board and redrawing them traditionally with dip pen and ink and adding gentle washes of watercolour.

I felt very strongly that this last step must be done by hand, I wanted the people that use this leaflet to feel the attention and care we've put in to this as illustrators. I wanted it to say "we feel with you" and "we listen to you". It can be frightening to have to take life-altering medication, we endeavored the leaflet's illustrations to feel as warm and supportive as we could.