Material catered to adults:
There is a lot of content for adults for the purposes of educating individuals about their visit to the hospital and what they will need. Putting this into a format for a child?
Material for children:
Content for children, created in narrative forms mostly. Using a recognisable or friendly character is an interesting way of interacting with children and make them feel more comfortable.
Environment and activity.
Although content about hospitals exists such as the visit itself, there isn't much to any content about the hospital experience as its happening in real time.
There isn't content that is centred around an environment, making it interactive and not as daunting to be in? By considering the ways in which interactive books and other mediums create an effective way which can be function and asethically appealing.
Interview with children's book design who discusses the importance of printed material interacting with the hospital environment and experience.
Leeds Children's hospital has an illustrated book created by Leeds Art's University Student Aghnia. She was approached by the hospital in order to create a more comfortable experience for children going through invasive procedures.
Contact with Aghnia
Interview was conucted by email in order
What was your motivation behind the work you did for Leeds Children Hospital? (see answer below)
How did you come into contact with Leeds Children hospital to do the work? Did you approach them and how or did they approach you?
A play worker from the hospital reached out to the university asking for anybody interested in illustrating their new children's book (this came in a form of an email).
I've always been really interested in children's book illustrations and wanted to take my career this way. At the time I had zero experience in working on a live client brief and decided that I so badly needed it!
So when I saw the email from the hospital, I instantly jumped at the opportunity and was lucky enough to be the chosen one haha.
How did you make the book as accurate as possible? Did you talk to anyone, do any specific research in order to make the information as factual as possible?
To be honest I had it pretty easy! I didn't need to do much research as I was provided with all that I need from the team at the hospital (they were pretty organised!)
This included photos of all the rooms and specific equipments they mentioned in the story. I was also given a copy of a similar, but pretty outdated book that the hospital had been using to use as reference.
Feedback stages were also put in place to help make the information as correct as possible - so before finalising any illustrations, all the sketches i did were sent to them for approval.
Did you receive any feedback from the design you made? From any parents or children who liked the work who were positively impacted by it?
The book was a great success and received a lot of attention locally and online! I still feel it was one of my most rewarding projects - I gained a lot of confidence in myself through this haha! I wasn't able to visit the hospital again after the book launch as uni work took my time away from me, but I kept in touch with the team that I worked with and was really pleased to hear that the book (friendly illustrations and thoughtful text) really help children and their families prepare for a kidney transplant! With such great feedback, I was even asked to work on a follow-up book for them - which I started but unfortunately and with regret, had to step down from the opportunity as I wasn't able to juggle uni and the new book at the same time (I was in my last year and I wanted to do well!).
What do you think are the benefits of a book for a child? What made you want to make a book?
There are so many things about pictures books that I absolutely love. As an Illustrator, I just love seeing my drawings being made into physical products and it's the same with the work of others too - I'm a collector of books (especially ones with nice pictures) I like that I know it's there and it's mine and doesn't just exist somewhere on the computer, you know?
I think books are also multi-sensory - children are able to hear the story, see the illustrations, even smell and touch the pages, which aids a child's growing mind and stimulates their imagination.
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