Melissa is about to graduate from the Communication Design Department at Parsons the New School for Design.
“To improve the design in a doctor’s office where it is often neglected, and to help reduce medical error, I created a color-coded system for office-based procedures. Through research, I became aware of medical mistakes and could not understand how leaving an instrument inside the patient’s body during a medical procedure was possible.
To improve on this problem and at the same time increase aesthetic appeal, I designated a color to each specific procedure performed in the office. This color I then applied to custom-cut kits I designed to hold the necessary instruments for the procedure and to the packaging of all individual tools and instruments. Each kit has a pre-cut slot for the instrument or tool to rest in, so after a procedure is performed and the instruments are returned to their appropriate location in the kit, there is no question of whether something is missing or not. Since the current tools and instruments in the doctor’s office come from various manufacturers, the packaging ends up looking random and scattered because of different colors, typefaces, and number size specifications.
In addition to giving everything used for a specific procedure its own color, I used the same typeface, type treatments, and hierarchical system when redesigning the existing packaging. This helped make things look more intentional, more uniform and appear as if all the tools and instruments came from the same manufacturer.”
More after the jump.
