In addition to design research work, I also do communication design work.
Service Design
Just as the methodology of design can be used to develop objects, buildings, logos or posters, it can also be applied to service development. Service design is a user-centric, multidisciplinary and evidence-based approach to the development of services.
I applied the tools of service design to revamp a rural youth center that was not fully meeting the needs of the most vulnerable youth in the community.
Information Design
This short motion graphic animation was inspired by the Favreau, Everett (1996) paper on the importance of inspecting the tails of a statistical distribution before making generalizations about groups. It was created using Illustrator and AfterEffects.
When I first moved to the Sunshine Coast, the BC Ferries official schedule was laid out in a way that was sometimes tricky to decipher. So I got into the habit of reorganizing its information in a more user-friendly way and shared it online for free.
An infographic explaining where I live. More specifically, answering the question “Why do you have to take the ferry if it’s not an island”.
Informed by literature reviews, conversations with stakeholders and direct observation in hospital birthing rooms, I created the Birth Bingo Card to capture the feeling of the Cascade of Interventions, one of the key mechanisms by which over-medicalization of birth takes place. This piece of knowledge translation is meant as a conversation starter around birth politics. I used the bingo card format to convey both how the cascade feels in the moment (a seemingly random yet constant accumulation of interventions resolving climactically by the birth of the baby) and the various forms it takes (the list of potential interventions implemented).
Knowledge Translation is often about information, but it can also be about feelings and experiences. Inspired by the work of White & Epston (1990) on narrative therapy, I pondered: “If my migraines were a person, what kind of person would it be?” I captured the answer in this series of self-ethnography knowledge translation illustrations.
Logos
The UBC Social Exposome Research Cluster studies how the sum of our social and environmental exposures (aka, our exposome) impacts our health. From society to cell, how does it get “under our skin?” This multidisciplinary team tackles a wide range of issues: from nutrition to forest fires, from in-utero chemical exposures to social isolation.
Our challenge was to create a logo that captures their values and the breadth of their work.
This logo was created as part of a larger service re-design for a small-town youth centre.
Lettering
Important reminder: good people break bad laws. You can buy this shirt (and other merch). But feel free to grab a Sharpie and write this public service announcement on objects of your choosing instead. Wear it at the next protest or get the coffee mug version to start conversations at the office.
The Nelson Waldorf School wanted to update their logo. They did not want to depart too much from their current one, so we opted for a logo refresh. Keep reading to learn more about how I approached this project.