Rural Emergency Medicine

An effective mode of communicating information and engaging interest in a topic is via graphics. Much like my examples from my Lifeinthefastlane guest post on Imagery in Medicine, others have harnessed imagery to take tackle topics, like Mental Health, to make it clearer and easier to understand to the general population.

Patrick Smith (otherwise known as Graphic Patrick) was undertaking some mental health research and put his graphic talent to use, to fashion some stylish minimalist posters about mental disorders. He has created a portfolio of mental disorder posters and a sample of his work is shown below.

Agoraphobia is an anxiety disorder defined as a morbid fear of wide open spaces, crowds, or uncontrolled social conditions.

Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight.

Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behavior, feelings and physical well-being.

Dissociative identity disorder is a psychiatric diagnosis that describes a condition in which a person displays multiple distinct identities or personalities, each with its own pattern of perceiving and interacting with the environment.

OCD is characterised by recurrent obsessions or compulsions that are time consuming or cause significant distress or impairment.

As demonstrated above posters can be effectively used for helping shed light on a disorder or disease.
(All definitions obtained via Wikipedia)

Mental Health Campaigns
Another use for creative graphics, is campaigning. Mental health campaigns often target individuals from the community to seek mental health services if they are feeling troubled, or alternatively reduce the stigma associated with certain disorders.

Below are a collection of posters done by Rob Murray and LPA productions, from the creativity of Will Thacker and Blake Waters's (of KK Outlet) original concept. The posters aim to highlight how modern day life can cause us to get caught up in many things, ultimately placing an immense amount of stress upon our bodies.




This novel poster by San Francisco-based ‘Scloopy’ and photographer Steve Deer both captures the viewer whilst also implanting a deeper meaning (Advertisement run by McCann Erickson Manchester for Leeds Counselling’s mental health campaign). Each string that constructs the face is a line of text, explaining the many and varied issues that one may seek counselling for.


Sometimes a poster is designed to target just a section of the population, who may have trouble expressing their emotions; for example males. John Barton, a UK graphic designer created this poster for Leeds Met Students’ Union, to encourage males to go to counselling.

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