I started by exploring the different illustrative styles I could use for my app to help determine the most appropriate visual language for a children’s hospital app. My main goal with my illustrations is to create characters that feel comforting, inclusive and engaging for young users, while also supporting communication in what can often be an unfamiliar or intimidating environment.
The first style I looked at was existing healthcare illustrations which are often clean, professional looking style vectors with friendly human characters. These illustrations typically represent doctors, nurses and patients in reassuring scenarios and help translate heavy text into a more visual way of understand what might happen.
However, while these visuals known as Corporate Memphis are clear and informative, I found that they can sometimes feel too clinical or generic for younger children, making it harder for them to create a bond or emotional connection with them as they feel feel soulless.
I then looked at more playful and expressive approaches such as more abstract and shape based characters. These designs use simplified forms, bright colours and minimal facial features to convey personality and emotion. This style feels more approachable and less intimidating, which is important in a hospital setting where children may feel anxious or fearful and struggle to express their own emotions.
While I was quite confident I wanted to create more abstract shape style characters, I decided t get some ideas and feedback from Conor, an illustration lecturer with experience in graphic medicine. Although his work is not specifically focused on children, I felt his perspective would be valuable in shaping the direction of my project.
One of the main points he mentioned about my current inspiration is that using a corporate memphis style such as generic faceless characters with block colouring was fairly ineffective and it would be better to avoid this as not only is overused in the medical field but it is not unique due to so much familiar imagery already existing.
He also emphasised how the more abstract simple shape and colour characters are much more interesting and effective especially among children as it allows them to place themselves in a character without having to be shown someone who looks or acts like them or their family or reflects their race or emotions etc. He also pointed out that abstract characters offer greater creative flexibility, particularly in how emotion can be communicated through colour, shape and form allowing me to explore colour theory and colour psychology more deeply, as well as how different shapes can express feelings in a simple but engaging way.
His best advice was just trying to find a good balance between something too simple and still being able to present the info and action you need to say. He also provided me with some additional inspo and resources such as looking at the current best selling childrens books across the uk and europe for your target audience as well as at Oliver jeffers simple little crayon characters, the colour monsters by Anna Llenas or Jon Klassens shape trilogy. These references provided valuable inspiration and helped me see how minimal, expressive characters can successfully communicate emotion and narrative.
Overall, this feedback was extremely useful in validating my direction while also challenging me to refine it further. It encouraged me to move away from overused visual styles and instead focus on creating something more distinctive, emotionally engaging and appropriate for a young audience.
