‘The Lost Voice’ promotes a life-changing new accessibility feature from Apple.

Each year millions lose their ability to talk due to degenerative diseases. Personal Voice recreates your speech on iPhone, so you can continue to communicate in your own, unique voice.

To raise awareness of this innovative technology we focused on an intimate use of the human voice - telling a bedtime story. Through the creation of a brand-new tale, brought to life in design as both a physical hardback and a downloadable e-book, we told a powerful story about the power of speech.

Those with speech loss are often forced to rely on proxy voices to speak on their behalf. Many depend on text-to-speech readers which sound robotic and unnatural. Providers and family often also speak for those without their own physical voices.

Apple's Personal Voice recreates a user's own voice on their iPhone, iPad or Mac instead, so they can speak through their devices in a voice that sounds like their own - enhancing autonomy and self-determination.

From speaking with loved ones to reading a bedtime story, your voice can be an important part of what makes you, you. Yet each year millions lose their ability to talk due to degenerative diseases like Motor Neurone Disease, Multiple Sclerosis, Muscular Dystrophy, cancers and dementia.

Personal Voice is an innovative new accessibility feature from Apple. Designed for those with speech loss, it uses machine learning on your iPhone, iPad or Mac to recreate your distinctive and unique way of speaking, so you can continue to communicate through your Apple devices in your own voice, even after losing your physical ability to talk.

The work was designed to raise awareness of this life-changing feature.

The work was created in English.

The illustrations for ‘The Lost Voice’ storybook were created on iPad by a talented member of the in-house Marcom team at Apple. Working in Procreate, with Apple Pencil, and to a brief inspired by a poem created for the project, the illustrator crafted a beautiful series of spreads which brought the story’s characters to life.

Tied closely to the filmed version of the tale, the illustrations depict the beauty of the natural world expressed in an earthy, almost monochromatic palette, with subtle brushstrokes and shading. A vibrant, bold pink was then used as a spot colour throughout to highlight the creature, our young protagonist and key accent details.

The illustrations were drawn, coloured, and then tested to ensure that they were fully accessible to all readers, in both physical and digital formats, as befits a tale about accessibility - ensuring everyone can enjoy the story from first page to last.