The Tokkles by the Brothers McLeod is the winner of our competition to find a cartoon character to convey health information on NHS Choices. The Tokkels appealed both to YouTube and NHS Choices users and to the judges, who thought it was original, well-crafted, and versatile enough to work in different areas of the site.
The Brothers McLeod have been awarded a six-month contract to develop the concept and their first animations will appear on NHS Choices within a few months.
"Perfect communication, executed beautifully. The tone is just right for the target audience: funny and mature with a lovely feel to the character and overall design. The sound is simple and subtle but works perfectly with the visuals." Sara, NHS Choices user
"Short and sweet. That's how to get a message across." Chazthesilencer, YouTube
"Nice work. It's humorous, easy to understand visually and gets straight to the point." Stickleback, NHS Choices user
Find outhow this Tokkel overcomes his trouble passing water.
About the competition
The NHS was launched in 1948 with a cartoon character called Charley. He successfully sold the new health service to the nation. You can see Charley in Your Very Good Health, a 1948 film.
In 2008, NHS Choices launched a competition to find new animated characters to communicate public health messages for the 21st century. The competition was run in conjunction with Creative Review, the magazine which has showcased the best of British design talent for the past 27 years.
We invited all animators, both new and experienced, to enter. We were looking for characters that would work well in both static illustration and in short animated films. The brief was to use humour, consistently strong writing and a distinctive visual identity to convey health information credibly, and without alienating the audience by being patronising.
This short animation from 1948 showed the public how the new NHS services would affect an ordinary family.
