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As a personal project, I decided to do an infographic on Spoon Theory. Explaining my limitations to others as a disabled person can be a difficult and often misunderstood process. I wanted to create an easy reference for others to help easily describe why I and other disabled people may have to "budget" energy for tasks and decline attendance to events due to a lack of "spoons." Since being coined by Christine Miserandino in the early 2000s, Spoon Theory has become a useful metaphor for disabled, chronically ill, and neurodivergent individuals to communicate with others their ability or inability to complete tasks.*
For my graphic, I decided on a color combination and aesthetic that is reminiscent of video games like Sims and Tamagotchi that tasks players with taking care of virtual characters. This, I hoped, would draw a comparison to taking care of oneself. After bringing rough marker drawings into Illustrator, I decided that outlining objects in black would help to emphasize the cartoony aspects of my concept while also creating a sense of interactivity.
* It is important to note that tasks may use up a different amount of spoons for different people. This graphic shows generalized examples of how taxing certain actions may be for disabled people, and is not representative of any one population. People start with a different amount of spoons every day, and resting periods that "reload" spoons may be more or less effective between individuals.