Medical Illustration

This research project by Emma Scheltema explored visual representation through illustrations designed to communicate often complex medical information for different users within a hospital.

In particular, relevant design elements of traditional and new media and tools were identified and investigated to see how they might be manipulated to affect varying degrees of naturalism or abstraction from reality. 

User feedback was collected throughout the process of creating the illustrations in order to better understand the preferences of different hospital users (medical professionals and patients) for illustrations that varied in their representation of information. Consequently, this feedback was used to inform the design of the final illustrations as well as identify some patterns in preference for representation between different users. These findings contribute towards the informed creation and use of effective illustrations in modern hospital communication. 

Some of the final illustrations were reproduced in the European Medical Journal - Cardiology. Sathananan, G., Lowe, B.S., Hornung, T. ‘The Fontan Circulation’ EMJ Cardiol. 2016;4[1]:76-83.