Hospital ... ! an emotion worth 100 stories
have you ever felt like the person in this image ?
it's grief
this type of emotion is experienced and can can be witnessed in hospitals abundantly , where the soul is feeling extreme emotions and body is trying to act neutral .
Both EXTREME EMOTIONS are born in hospital. The extreme happiness of NEW LIFE..."BIRTH" and the SORROW OF SUFFERING.
and then there is forever goodbye !
This makes hospitals a place of triggers .
The people in hospital especially the patients and their relatives are very VULNERABLE emotionally hence can be instinctively triggered. One such silent trigger is of FINANCE and hence the design should be of NEUTRAL NATURE and MINIMALISTIC.
It should not feel like to anyone that due to their less money ” they were not able to serve their loved one better “. Be very sensitive while designing aesthetic.
stepping A STEP AHEAD OF MINIMALISM.....
1. Choosing the correct graphics
You must have seen graphics in hospital in form of small framed painting or photographs mostly , but why ? Because COLOURS ALSO TRIGGERS and hence, use of variety of colour is avoided . In fact mostly neutral colours like grey, brown, tone of green etc are preferred. This is also very much observed that in hospital design pictorial representations are avoided and if used then its in abstract form … the meaning connected to which is not so obvious. These pinch of graphics are generally added to break the monotonous visual movement . Hence visual texture are very carefully chosen. Consider this white space as a rectangular wall and choose a graphic for it
Like here we have chosen this graphic based on theme of life , that how life keeps going on or the journey of life. Here, I have chosen green to start my design. Green is the colour of mother nature and hence give the feeling of nurturing . Slowly with the journey of life its representing how leaves changes their colour. The colour is being shown going into transition yet not feeling dull. Because I have chosen value of red which it an energetic colour. This will give the feel of different stages of life , not comparison of different stages of life, showing how each stage has its own unique representation. The colours are chosen carefully, to not trigger.
So psychologically (hidden) red will give strength and green will give hope.
Mentioning about geometry, I have chosen leaf geometry that symbolise real life cycle . A person can connect to leaf as a living being.
2. what to add and avoid
In every healthcare department , you will notice that , they never hesitate from using a lot of green . It’s because green soothes eyes, it relaxes your eyes. And relaxing your eyes somehow helps you to balance your stress level. Hence we will also add more green and the value of green we will choose is the colour of the newborn leaf . This increases hope the something positive is about to take birth from any kind of situation. Adding green in your surrounding keeps you mentally more balanced , it also doesn’t induces hunger unlike red or yellow and avoids feeling of loneliness unlike blue.
We want maximum area to be occupied by green and white. And we want to avoid any high energetic colour like red. Red is also colour of blood, hence you understand the triggers .
3. balancing it out.... asymmetrical way
Balance is an important aspect of visual design to feel stability. Balance is not a necessary aspect of design , as per me unity is, but in hospital wall design balance becomes crucial as it’s an influential factor that helps emotionally. For unity, we have transition of colour and texture of leaf still to unify it entirely we choose continuity and that is attained when we apply the other set of colour other than green. For keeping it near to neutral we apply second least hue to the text we use to balance the design.
Unity comes when colour and texture feel unified . But balance comes when the weight on both sides feels equal. Hence we use thick 3d text, it feels heavy.
Beautiful here silently affirms individual beauty of every stage of life .
4. adding excitement .....to complete life
Silently adding excitement by creating design in such font in the end that feels like a signature. Signature of the one that lived and signature of the one that affirms , that biggest beauty of life is that it goes on. The colour at the end text is mix of the main two colours …of beginning and of end…. to prove that no matter how much and how long… LIFE IS BEAUTIFUL JOURNEY.