GE Healthcare Adventure Series

Medical equipment can be intimidating, especially large imaging systems. To a child, the prospect of engaging with these big, loud machines can be a terrifying experience. GE Healthcare’s Adventure Series seeks to buck that trend. Everything can be made into a story, even something as cold and intimidating as imaging equipment. The goal of this project was to take what would normally be a frightful experience and turn it into something else entirely, so that children going through it could focus on something beyond the loud noises and sleek, cold surfaces of an imaging system. A cable car ride through the streets of San Francisco, a boat ride down by the marina, or a trip through Muir woods. Suddenly that scary scan is transformed into an engaging experience and a child who would have had to go through a potentially traumatic experience now has something to hold onto, a springboard for their imagination to run wild.

Illustration

Agency: JWD Creative
Client: GE Healthcare

I was extremely fortunate to not only help design and illustrate some of these experiences, but to be on-site for one of the installations at UCSF Benioff Children's Hospital. Seeing the artwork come to life as we applied the graphics to the scan room walls and equipment was truly awe-inspiring. But what has stuck with me the most was the look of wonder in the faces of the people who’d occasionally pop their head in to see what we were doing. “I wish we had something like this for adults!” is something I heard multiple times during our time there. This was an incredible opportunity, one with the potential to positively affect a young life that may otherwise have had to experience something potentially traumatic.