Life's a Pitch: Refined Research

For part of 'Visuwallise' we have agreed to produce mock ups of our art work where we could see our particular tone of voice being applied to. At the minute, I am developing my digital skills by using bring colours and shapes within my illustrations; I believed that I could push this further by making plans for my wall designs to be potentially interactive/informative, possibly aimed at a younger audience. It is important to me that people that see my wall designs gain a memorable experience from their viewing, rather than just thinking 'that looks nice'.

Enhancing the healing environment

As part of my COP project I have been researching into healthcare and the NHS, and I came across a book called Enhancing the healing environment. The book emphasises the importance of design within hospitals and other places of care and how high quality and well considered design can be applied to help patients feel more comfortable and relaxed, therefore enhancing their recovery experience. This is something I quickly became interested in, especially as I had previously considered a career in health care and I would find it extremely rewarding and gratifying if I could help people in an alternative way by uplifting their spirits through art.

As I wanted to explore producing work for younger audiences, I had a look into projects that had taken place in children's hospitals. I came a cross an organisation based in London called 'Vital Arts', which is charitably funded to deliver programmes within the arts for the wellbeing of patients and staff at the Barts Health NHS Trust. http://www.vitalarts.org.uk

In one of their most recent projects, Vital Arts commissioned 15 artists to make the London Royal Children's Hospital more comforting for its young residents. Their responses were absolutely mind blowing. So much imagination and care to attention has been delivered through these designs, guaranteeing the levels of the children's anxiety decrease significantly during their stay. The vast majority of hospitals across the UK obtain a very dull and clinical atmosphere, which can make the whole experience really daunting. But the designs produced by artists including Chris Haughton, Katharine Morling, Donna Wilson and many more create an exciting and imaginative world that completely draws away from the worrying preconceptions of the hospital environment.

I also had a look at other projects in hospitals across the UK and funding programmes that contribute towards rejuvenating the quality of spaces within places of care. Due to the current government spending cuts, a lot of these projects are only eligible to take place in major cities, such as London, Manchester and Sheffield. I found out about another art funding charity called 'Artfelt' based in Sheffield, and a recent project that they commissioned  for illustrator Nick Deakin. He created artwork for six spaces in the orthoptic department, and found it really challenging to produce work that met their expectations. Eventually he came up with a concept to create a character based group of friends experiencing different adventures; he wanted to initially create a family of characters, but struggled to include all aspects of cultural diversity within.  


My Response

In my sketchbook I jotted down a few ideas of different exotic places and imagined worlds that children may be interested in, for example jungles, space scenes, under water etc. whilst also recalling some of the memories and powerful imagery that I remember from my childhood. I embarked on a fair few visits to hospital as a wheezy asthma-ridden three year old, and I remember there being colourful patterns of animals footprints along the ceiling and floor as far as decorations went, the rest was quite dark dingy and generally un-inspiring. I would have felt more at ease in a bright and colourful environment, therefore lighting is a really important element of design too as well as the imagery. 

I did initially intend to develop my designs further by creating more interactive elements for example removable fixtures like puzzle pieces; something educational for instance. But I figured that some children may be really un-well and unable to partake in such activities in a waiting area or corridor, so I could keep that idea in mind when designing somewhere like a play area for instance. My two strongest ideas I believe were the jungle-bugs and the under water scene, so I invested a fair amount of time into digitally producing what I hope to believe are good quality images that would be suitable for corridors and waiting areas of hospitals. I produced two mock ups for these, which I am actually really proud of! 

Reflection/Action Plan

I have become really quite interested in producing work that will help improve healing environments since beginning this research, and this is something that I hope to continue with after Life's A Pitch.  I will continue to research into this particular area of illustration, as well as contribute to completing the presentation and refining all of our proposals for Visuwallise. Tom fortunately has some software that produces 3-D mockups of walls within an architectural space, so we have all been requested to send him our JPEGS and he will produce those for the presentation. In our next group meeting we will take headshot photographs and refine our individual roles within the business, and discuss the design and layout for the presentation.