Using colourful design to remind parents to vaccinate their children has won a Canberra academic recognition on the world stage.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation awarded Lisa Scharoun US$20,000 ($22,000) for her design of child vaccination records.
Her design was a top 10 finalist of more than 300 entries from 41 countries in the foundation's Records for Life competition and won the ''Ease of Adding Information'' category.
A graphic design lecturer at the University of Canberra, Dr Scharoun said she entered the competition because she thought it was a worthwhile project to be involved in, describing her win as a ''bonus.''
Dr Scharoun aimed to make her design as simple as possible, knowing that some parents in the developing world had limited education.
''In this case, they were looking at people that are potentially illiterate and don't really know what's on the form and understand the value of it, but they do want to help their kids to get vaccinated, they want their kids to be healthy,'' she said.
The designer used rainbow colours which encouraged a progression from one piece of information to the next, symbols to communicate meaning and diagrams of people who were deliberately not identifiable as any one race.
Having recently had a baby herself, Dr Scharoun said she understood how much information was thrust at new parents.
''The Australian health book you get when you have a baby is this thick book full of multiple pieces of paper, colour coded sections, a lot of the information I've never used,'' she said.
''I wanted to create a single source of information that was simple … it's not daunting for somebody looking at it.''
Dr Scharoun said the records included removable, colourful tamper-proof infant bracelets to remind parents of the date when their child's next vaccination was due.
In addition to the date written on the bracelets, their bright colours were designed to fade over time, so a shabby looking bracelet was an additional visual reminder to schedule another vaccination, she said.
The foundation flew the finalists to Amsterdam to swap ideas at a design conference.