Ewgeco Highland Fayre Dean’s of Huntly Grampian Heat & Power NHS - CSMEN

Clinical Skills Managed Educational Network - applying design on a large scale

In autumn 2008, I accepted a new challenge - designing the graphics for a 10 metre long mobile classroom!
This was definitely a step out of my comfort zone and the scale of the work was certainly much larger than the
A-size print work I am used to.

I had been involved with the Clinical Skills Managed Educational Network from early 2008 and had assisted Project Manager Jeanette Stevenson in developing some simple branding for stationery and business cards. Also, through the design of a newsletter and website (www.csmen.ac.uk), I had begun to establish a visual style for the Network.

Part of the remit for the CS MEN was to commission and pilot a mobile classroom which would be used to give clinical skills education in rural areas. When approached to design the graphics for the vehicle I was initially wary, but I'm not one to evade a challenge! I had designed vehicle graphics before - just not on such a large scale. The principles, however, are the same no matter what the size of the graphics.

The finished design is a combination of large scale images for impact on the road and smaller images for interaction by those using the classroom. All the images had to reflect the kind of education that would take place on-board as well as displaying appropriate cultural diversity. I spent a great deal of time trawling through photograph libraries... There was
also rather a lot of retouching to be done in Photoshop to get the images just right! As the project is sponsored by NHS Education for Scotland, I also incorporated their logo following the NES brand guidelines.

The initial concepts for the mobile classroom were designed on scale drawings provided by Cebotech, the engineering company delivering the build. Once the design and photography were approved I prepared the final artwork for Smart Graphics who would make and apply the printed panels to the vehicle.

In November I had the pleasure of attending the ‘unveiling’ of the mobile classroom by Ms Shona Robinson MSP, Minister
for Public Health, during the Scottish Clinical Skills Alliance conference in Stirling. It was great to see the graphics which
I had designed on my desktop applied on a large scale. Everyone involved with the project was suitably impressed with
the finished result!