Gentle Mentals
Gentle Mentals is a grassroots initiative with a mission to shine a playful light on mental illness to soften its stigma. I created “therapy animals” to portray human conditions that affect one out of four people in the world—to lighten this heavy conversation. If we can smile and speak more openly about something that touches so many, we'd all be better for it.
I started with a book. Since its publication, the book has received the Next Generation Indie book awards and the Reader's Favorite Illustration Award. And then created a website with information and resources on mental health. The instagram account focuses on humor and hope. And have since extended to a small line of products with a portion of proceeds donated to suicide prevention organizations.
Author | Illustrator | Founder | Identity
Gentle Mentals Animated Short
An animated short seemed like an obvious extension. It has since been showcased a few dozen times in film festivals worldwide, received recognition at the Lampa Film Festival Symposium held at the United Nations at Geneva and New York, and was featured in Lurzer’s Archive Magazine and was a Communication Arts Award winner. The hope in this effort is to have more eyes on this project because the real win is when it can actually help.