Heart Times : exploring the role of illustration in a healthcare setting for children.

Abstract

Heart Times is a design project that aims to integrate illustration into healthcare. Targeted

at children below the age of 6, and designed according to the needs of the therapist working with

these children, this project explores how illustration can address the psychological, social and

emotional issues battled by children in the hospital. Heart Times concedes the fact that while

most children dread visiting the hospital due to the fear of unfamiliarity or pain from treatments,

it is the very first experience of being separated from their parents or guardian that is often most

daunting to them. This project seeks to attend to this very fear of separation anxiety in the child

patient, through the adventure embarked on by a protagonist with the same mindset and fears.

Besides serving as a platform for the therapist to open up topics with child patients, my project

also hopes to comfort children with the possibility that the hospital is not such a frightful place to

be in after all.