The Orb

I work for a marketing agency that specializes in rare diseases, and for a significant chunk of last year I'd been spending a lot of long hours working on one specific brand. My office has an annual Halloween party, and last year a few people dressed up as concept art they had worked on. My official Halloween costume (Zoolander) was too much work for the middle of the work day and I liked the idea of coming up with something (relatively, for me) quick and simple that would only make sense in my office.

So I made an orb.

This is a piece of cover art for a brochure I spent a bazillion hours on. It's for a drug used to treat a condition that has to do with neurotransmitters not properly sending signals to muscles. The illustration of how the drug works is what's hovering in the orb.

Supplies: clear plastic sphere, lots of colors of tissue paper, Crayola modeling clay (love that stuff, it's nice and light), Tacky Glue for adhesion and tissue paper forming, clear beading thread, dark beads, and generous amounts of hot glue.

Finding the clear plastic sphere was pure dumb luck. The week before we visited some friends, one of whom may as well be named Mrs. McCraftsy. I asked her if she knew where I could possibly find a clear plastic sphere that came apart that was a bout yea big. Her answer was, "oh, I have one of those in my craft room, you can have it." Best guess is that candy came in it.

Tissue paper base to set the shape

Muscle tissue

Muscle tissue with neurotransmitter receivers

Drug molecules

Drug molecules doin' their thing

Shape for the thing that produces neurotransmitters

Tissue paper for color and bulk, the round base made the frame
and was easy to poke beading thread through

It went over really well! The rest of the team knew what it was immediately and thought it was awesome, everyone else got it as soon as I held up my printout of the cover art.

I won Most Original in the costume contest. ( ^_^ )

Me and the Account team staging the cover art photo
This photo was sent to the client, who thought it was hilarious
The orb now belongs to the art director that developed the concept