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way, way you are a high, everyone. Welcome to the workshop session and for graphics in the clinic. My name is Sharon Assess, and I am currently a PhD candidate at the House, the university. I study something very different from what I'm going to be talking about today. And, uh, that is immune oncology and what I'm going to talk about today. Scientific illustrations, um, and essentially, how they could be used. Generally, visuals of visual communication can be used in the clinic to help improve the communication as well as, well, try a little bit about a few different tips and tricks that you can use a swell, um, so my rule it designs that settled. The scientific illustrator started just by freelancing some work while I was in graduate school, and it's now grown to a team of very talented students all across the globe, and we work with clinicians and scientists and students to communicate different concepts. We frequently make infographics to communicate complex scientific ideas. We work with different physicians to illustrate different procedures, for example, certain surgical techniques that might needs of illustrations to a company and help communicate. And so that's my background in a little bit about what I do and why this is relevant. Um, and, uh, we're gonna get started with a few slides. I'm happy to take questions at any point. If it's if we're able to do that through the chats on if I see any, I will try to answer them as I go along. But if not, then I am hoping to leave some time at the end of questions, I also would, like, decide to be made available to you. I have either a link that I can share, but also, hopefully, this will be facilitated in ah form that will be sent to you afterwards. So no need to take frantic notes. These will be available, including all the resources and links that include in here. And my contact information is here. If you have any questions about anything that I'm going to be chatting, vote today. Okay, So getting started, we're gonna first just, you know, go over some different topics about questions that people typically have when we talk about visual communication, your scientific or medical illustration. And the first reason is why, um and so we'll go a little bit into that the second kind of question that I get is, well, you know, I'm really not talented with desire in graphic design. I haven't been trained. I don't really know how to approach this. So there's always the question of Can I have someone to work with to make them for me? Um And then there's those who are really keen. It's actually do this and really enjoy graphic design and, you know, being able to work on that creative skill. So I do get questions about Is this an actual job? Is this a career? Um, And then, of course, the most popular thing is, Well, how do I do this? So we're going to go through in today's contents a few different things, starting with why we want to be using visual communication and some of the context that it might apply to. And then I'm going to talk a little bit about how to work with my artists, which is a broad term that encompasses a few different things. And then I'm briefly going to touch on clear past in scientific illustration and visualization, and then we're gonna spend the majority of today talking about actual steps and tips and tricks for when you go to actually create your illustrations and they will give adjusting where that I have a nine month old in the house. So if you hear frantic banging or screaming or crying, that is what was happening. And he is Okay, um, so my other disclosures for today or that I own a scientific illustrations in communications company. So I really benefit from all of you believing that visual communication is best. So there's obviously an inherent bias on what I'm going to be talking with you about my other disclosures. I believe in science and the scientific process, and science says that vaccines working crunchy Israel. So today we're gonna be talking about communication and really there too broad Patagonia's where the type of communication I'm gonna be talking about today apply one of which is in reach, which it is when care professionals, medical professional scientists, researchers communicate with people with in the same field. So obviously with let's a niche academic research that's going to be individuals where specifically, maybe in your lab within that field. Then, of course, you can go to conferences that our disease specific again you're going to be talking with people who understand the acronyms and the language that you're gonna be using. And then there's a whole another category, which is outreach, which is when you're communicating with anyone outside your field. So it doesn't really matter what their background is it specific that their background isn't what you're expert in, so you're going to have to do a little bit more work to communicate those concepts if people are not familiar used to thinking about thumb. So we're going to start off with talking about why visual communication is good and why we want to be thinking about using it. So the first thing I'm going to talk about it, some of the advantages of visual communication over written or text communication. And obviously, when we talk about communication today in the digital realm, usually these things are compliant. So we have things like tic tac where or incorporating visuals. We're incorporating video. We're incorporating text all together, Um, but only purely your looking at something visual versus something text based. There are some clear advantages to visual communication, the first of which is that they're more attractive now in this online environment, is actually really important for us to be able to get our message out there and the truck readers, whether that's publishing and academic journals and you want to be able to, you know, track people to that publication that you've written so you can increase things like you're all metric or whether it's trying to advocate for something. What's down a Social Media posts. You want to make sure that your communication pieces are attractive so people can, you know, be interested in, and you want to pick that interest in the same way you want to when you're telling the story. And, of course, they're more engaging. So we know that visuals compared to text and basic text are going to keep people more engaged for a longer period of time. Obviously again, in this online environment, which is where we're all living currently, it's really important to be able to keep people engaged. Accessibility is another really great advantage to using visual communication. While there are a lot of things like language barrier here is that kid prevent people from being able to excess information, as always, just drugging, and let's say, you know, formal academic publications or conversations. Even in a clinic with your healthcare provider, there's going to be barriers that are gonna prevent you from being able to properly communicate with perhaps a patient or a population that you want to target. Creating visuals and incorporating them are really across barrier, kind of and and across cultural, that type of way to communicate something so visuals can really help in those contacts where it's a little bit more challenging, there are so also more memorable. So when we look at, if we so somebody a picture of different icons versus show them a list of tax when we ask them what they remember, we know that people are better at remembering those visual cues and most visual identification zone. Obviously, that's very important when we're trying to share information or disseminate knowledge. And, of course, they're more terrible. When we think about, let's say an abstract that we're going to be publishing for a conference and we're putting it together when we're sharing, it lets me on Twitter. Obviously there's gonna be one form of an abstract was going more cerebral than others, not a graphical abstract. I'm not going to be retweeting. You're you're 300 word text wall that's going to be engaging. It's not going to work, You know, the visual type of the same information is going to be a lot more easily disseminated. So here's some examples of how that applies. So first of all, I'm going to give you something recent that has just recently been updated, published in the V M J, which is a living who guideline for drugs on copay. So again, these links will be live. But I really like this because it's combining things like traditional academic publishing with infographics and an interaction that really is aimed at healthcare providers. But there's two versions of the information that's available. One isn't infographic that's interactive online, which is what you see on the left There at the BMJ, and the other is the World Health Organization is document that, essentially is the same information on the company's. This was 128 or document. Now if I asked you where you would go to get this information or what you would prefer to read, I think I know what the answer is. But we'll leave it of the child if you'd like to comment. Obviously, there's something that's going to be a little bit more attractive to people were interested in finance information and something that's a little bit more engaging, and this obviously would be an example of enriched. But also you could imagine that somebody who's just looking for information would be quite engaged with something like a living, breathing infographic. So moving on. We already talked a little bit about accessibility, and I'm going to be giving some considerations later for that as well. But it's clear that when we talk about things like language, there are a lot of barriers. And so three ating usual is that can really transcend that language. Barrier is an important consideration for communication and health care. Now we talk about memorable. I don't think there's a better example than some of these visuals where people are. It's literally drilled in your head. And if somebody said, Oh, the cove, it graphic. We all know exactly what we were talking about. Another really good example of something as memorable is three idea of flattening the curve, and I'm not sure how many of you engaged with this specific. It's a gift, so unfortunately, couldn't get it to work, live in my part point. But what you see is that we have this individual who eyes not taking precautions and this increasing this curve, which we're all familiar with seeing probably at this point and then the flattened version of the exact same curve with the person who's a little bit more conscientious and is treating it like it should be treated, which is a pandemic. Um, so obviously these visuals are a little bit more memorable than perhaps some other visuals that we've seen or text in particular. And then, of course, we talked about how easily visuals can be disseminated. Um, particularly when we look at things like Twitter. There have been studies, although not, you know, academically vetted. But they have been studied for marketing companies pretty much everywhere, and they all come up with the same thing. When you incorporate visuals into anything you're trying to market, you're trying to advertise, advocate a disseminate. Having visuals can strongly increase up to 80% engagement and whatever you're doing on whatever platform, so it doesn't, you know, just apply to one specific type of social media platform. But it's gonna work everywhere. And likely. This is also true when we talk about communicating both in the clinic, but also, let's say, at academic conferences to If we incorporate a lot of engaging visuals into our poster, perhaps it'll bring people to our poster. It'll be interested. Ask us questions and obviously that's what we want to do. So, in example, of this and something that we've worked on it designs itself is we take something that's like a wall of text in abstract, and we created into something that's attractive, engaging, accessible, memorable and terrible. And so we work with, uh, this particular example was a scientist who is researching, um, some outcomes of cancer survivorship, and so you can see that when we're trying to communicate with patients and this was a patient handout to communicate the findings of that research. We want to think about alternative and more modern leads to communicate, because this way, it really you know, the text based hasn't changed since we started communicating and stuff. And so it's time that we update. Refresh thought so when we talk about visual versus text communication, a question that I got often as well what about efficiency Is it actually better, in the case of, you know, getting people to understand the contents? Or, you know, how quickly can we understand this content if it's visual versus text? And so there have actually been studies done on this, and there are, you know, a lot of different numbers that you'll see out there, depending on the study that having on the population and what they did. But generally, when we talk about this type of communication, we can use visuals in a minute versus text. In a minute. The average English reader or viewer will be able to read about 200 words in a minute. That same individual in the same amount of time could have been processing 1200 visual. So obviously there's a disproportionate advantage in terms of visual communication that I don't believe we're really taking full advantage of in the healthcare field or in the scientific communication feel generally. So that brings us to what some of you might be feeling. How do I do this? You know I'm not tolerant ID. I don't have an artistic bone. And me, which is sort of Levi, because he went into the health care field. Um, some of you may, and we'll get to that later. But for those of you who don't just know that help does exist in, there are people who can help you create these visuals and who can help you eliminate your research dissemination or the information you want to communicate to a patient that's right in front of you. You can find that help so there are a lot of different avenues that you can use to find individuals who might be able to do this for you, and it really depends on a few things. But, um, some ideas that you might not think about is actually healthcare pressure ALS who artistically inclined. So ask your professional network for your social networks for recommendations. Chances are there. Some people you already know we're engaging with are working good. The collaborating with that have this talent, it would be happy to help. There's also institutional vendors. So if you're affiliated with an epidemic institution, ask them who has been hired previously for the graphic design work. Chances are you're going to find somebody with the scientific blocker out this will, and of course they're freelance artist, So you couldn't find it straighter is graphic designer scientific illustrators. He would be able to help you out. And there's also collectives or companies. So this is like us to that designs that sell. This is what we do. We have a collective of scientific, all traitors with different talents, different niches, different expertise. And we essentially provide the same work that a freelance artist would. But obviously we do it with a little bit more standard and policies and procedures. So you're not just working with one individual? What, you got to work with a T. So these are some different opportunities. And again, depending on your budget, depending on with the goal of that visual communication piece is one of these might work better than another. I'm just noticing there's some things in the chart here, Um, s So I think this is a link. Here is a poster. I'm not sure if that's the question, but anyway, So if you if you do, you have questions or put them in the trash because I can see them, which is exciting, because sometimes in these about forms, you can't Okay, so moving on this is the typical process of what it usually looks like working with the artist or a graphic designer. But obviously, depending on the specific route that you take for the person that you're engaging with, this might change a little bit. Um, so I'll give you this kind of breakdown. You first one, um, heat with somebody, you're gonna try it about what your project is with the scope of the project is to make sure it's a good fit. Then you're going to think about, you know, creating some kind of an agreement with this person that might be a formal contract. If you work with a company like designs that sell, it might also just be a verbal agreement like this is, you know, generally what I charge, and this is how much it's going to cost you if you take out these things and writing if you can, especially while working with creatives next, you're going to be, you know, given a draft or different interational, depending again on the workflow of the person you're working with. So this is an opportunity for you to comment on the content, some of the layout. We definitely do this that designs that sell you know we give lying drafts first to make sure that we have the science. Correct. And you haven't laid out organized in a way that makes sense for what they're trying to communicate, and then you end up with the final version and then obviously payment and use comes after. So there are some considerations, and this process is going to change depending on what exactly you're working with. So some of these considerations might be the skills or the expertise of the person that you collaborate with. So what is they're required knowledge of the topic. Do they need to be an expert in this field to to be able to communicate it? So, for example, some of the things that we work on, like no very specific proteins or blood vessels. Sometimes we ask for the publications that associate with that specific research topic so that we could be more informed, and we make sure that we're showing this, you know, protein in a way that makes it. And then, of course, they're designed style. So, um, some people are inclined with certain types of illustration style, so, you know, taking a look at their portfolio, taking a look at what their previous experiences is really the best way to make sure that you're going with somebody who's a good fit. Um, of course, the budget is another consideration that you'll have to make. So if you're looking at a company you're looking at over had costs. Those are typically lower with Reliance individuals. You're also looking at the cost breakdown. So, really, do they charge for, you know, scientific A list rations is this much and, ah, cover for a journal? Is this much? Or do they church by our, um, also look out for things like students or early career investigators discounts because you will find them often and, of course, timeline. Every company, every freelance or every collaboration unique, especially if it's a friend who, let's say, is also a physician are going to give you different timeline. So you want to make sure that when you want that piece of that communication, it's ready for you to go and, of course, the review on piloting stage. So this is not just a check box, but rather really important point that you should integrate into your creation, which is thinking about integrating people who you're trying to communicate with. Really, there's no better way to test it or pilot on infographic of visual, any type of communication piece. But then, by asking the people who are eventually going to be engaging with it, what they think in addition to this, think about how your hiring in terms of do they have a Nintendo with you or pilot. So if you go with somebody who's a freelancer, they might have friends that they asked to review their material. They might, you know, just be reviewing it themselves. If you go with the collective like designs that sell, like, for example, we haven't internal review process where our team also is able to critique and on, you know, different ideas or thoughts there. And another really important consideration is copy. Great. So when you work with certain heard is velveteen copyright. When you work with others, they'll provide you with the copyright. If you plan on using anything for official publication, do know that the publication rates are transferred to that journal that you publish with or that make using that you publish with. So you need to make sure that you are the owner of that copyright before you do that. And, of course, check in with their port portfolio. Use of a visual The last thing you want is some kind of a grand figure going up on someone's online portfolio, giving away all your brilliant science or research secrets. So make sure that that these are the things that you're asking about when you engage with somebody for scientific all astray. Shins are graphic design around your research Now. Another thing I'll mention is a cost of a skilled artists and designers. So you're here and, you know, hopefully not crying. But you might be a little bit upset and stressed out about working with somebody. And, um, what you're seeing is really this much of a timeline of someone who's been working in the field for a lot longer. So there, especially with scientific elevators or scientific graphic designers, there's a long you know, years and years of time before you're engaged with that specific skill. And during that time they spend money on education and training. A lot of the people of my team, for example, have huge cheese, and I finished the research, have medical training, have done rotations with Let's see as a pathologist assistant things like that. So? So what you're paying for, really is not just the time that you know you're having them create the work, But you're paying for all that education in the years of experience and expertise that they bring. And so this is a typical rate, which I like to, you know, bring up front. So people are aware of what the cost should be when you're looking at at a designer. And obviously these rates are going to vary depending on who you're working with, what their skill level is. Um, but but do you know when you go in that this is is a skilled job. It's a very high niche, um, career. So you know, you want to make sure that you're you're appropriately compensate in the person who's doing that work for you. Even if it's a friend. I really recommend that that you think about creating that official contract with cost some percent likely. Yes, there. Is there questions? Yeah. Thank you for letting me know. Um, are there any times you have for keeping budget low while keeping the right side of copyright? Especially her medical images Yeah, so definitely. I mean, copper levels have been over the hot topic, but work with collectives if you want to keep the cost low while keeping copyright, Working with real answer is always going to increase that cost because of the fact that essentially, any work that they do need to go directly to their portfolio. So other ways to keep cost lower. To go to your consultation of that initial meeting with exactly what you like incorporated in the visual. Maybe not the layout, but really have your communication goal in your audience and and we'll talk about these tips and tricks later. But if you have these things set up before you go to that consultation or that meeting, you're gonna be setting yourself up for success. And you're going to be really decreasing the number of hours that that person has to essentially do the guesswork or, you know, different options for you, so that will keep your cost low as well. Um, Fatima asked, If you create Infographic for yourself or an organization, how do we go about getting copyright? So if you're creating them for graphic yourself, then you have the copyright to that infographic. Now, if you're taking visuals from different locations, it's important to check what the copyright of those locations are. So, for example, um, I created all of this in Canada. Ah, there are different, you know, different platforms that are available. And obviously, if you're artistically inclined and you can illustrate those components yourself, um, then the copyright will be here. So essentially go back to wherever you found a component of that ulcer. If you know that infographic and see what their copyright status is, usually it's listed right on. Let's say like I'm I'm gonna give you a bunch of different image banks and graphic banks. And if you go to those things, we'll see what the copyright status is because they'll lay it out for you. Um, so, luckily, we're living now in this very digital age, where there's a lot of different online opportunity to find images and image things that are copyright free. Um, and usually it'll be they'll be quite up front about what that copyright status is. If you're not sure, go back to where you originally found it and try to see if you can identify it. If you still are not sure. Don't use the image. Find an alternative that you know is copped great free. Um, you know, and especially with let's say, like medical text books and things, Those are the textbooks. Copyright. So you always want to be referencing that or publication. Let's say you always will be referencing that publication. It doesn't mean you can't use it definitely can, in the same way that we use ideas from academic publications. But we just make sure that we like them correctly. If you're sharing. If a graphic that you didn't create yourself, who was the artist? Maybe like their portfolio. No one's going to get mad about that free advertisement. And of course, you're referencing the appropriate individuals. Um, I think Okay, Yeah, no problem. Has had just had another medication, So I wanted to make sure there wasn't another question there. Um, okay, so now that's the exciting part. For those of you who might be inclined with graphic design This an actual job? Yes, I have a team of 15 illustrators who work quite variably, some people part times a beautiful time in this career. So I want to give you a few examples in some individuals to follow that are part of the designs that Salt Team and I'm going to give you a little bit of a little tidbits about their background and what they do. So, for example, in a Tasha is a senior communicator after signs that sellin and what she does really is focus on the knowledge translation. He's so she has a masters of public health is always a masters of science. But really, what she does is she holds in that map master of public health and the skills that she learned layer. And the prize is two things that we're trying to do for knowledge translation through that impeach lens. And so her background was a about your science master science than a master public health. And now she works, also his evaluation consultant, but as a senior communicator. So she's not necessarily doing the hands on graphic design portion or the hands on illustrations portion. So that's an option for some of you might be thinking. Okay, I have the skills that I'm really excited about this, but I don't necessarily want to, you know, free droppings. And then there's somebody like I owe me who is very anatomical in her illustrations, So she is training to be a certified medical illustrator, which is a little bit different from a scientific illustrator and how we approach things. Her background is biomedical science, and she finished also an anatomy masters of science before going into her masters of biomedical communications, which is the only program in Canada that certifies medical illustrators. I'm also with that program, is Ms She. She took a little bit of a different focus, and her focus really within decir World is talking about general visualization processes, so she's not taking as much of an anatomy lens but rather taking concepts that are complex and visualizing them. So she does a lot of the work that we would consider scientific graphic design. We also have, um, Melissa who? Isaak really in the UK So, um, she's available to to you overseas. They're, uh, and she's a senior illustrator, designs those cell, but her focus really is on graphical abstracts, so she uses either existing graphics Horschel illustrate graphics, depending on what the needs are, and she'll create something specifically for a publication. So for that, we ask people to send the publications she'll create the major kind of findings working with that client, and then we'll come up with something that can be published along with that academic journal. So even though this, you know scientific art field is, you know, seems like it's daunting and it's really hard to get into. It's not when you when you take an avenue of roots of kind of skills that you're already practising in your current careers. So this is something that you're thinking about trying to connect with people who are already doing it, ask some questions and realize that there are probably about, you know, 200 different routes to get to the angle, which is working with clients and creating art in a way that communicate science. And you know, that looks very different, depending on where you're working, how you're working with and what exactly you're doing. Um, the safest bet, if you're interested like I said, is meet with somebody who's already doing it at some questions. Likely if they aren't able to, they'll be able to connect you with somebody who is able to enter any of those questions that you have. Okay, so now getting in to the majority of our top, which will be how you actually create these visuals. So I have distilled this down into 10 steps for effective visual satcoms. But this is not by all means. It's not in an own compass thing presentation. There's going to be things that are going to be unique for every project. If you follow this this guideline, it should help at least give you some kind of a protocol to follow, Um, which you know as healthcare, individuals and scientists. We we love our particles. So the first thing is to think about a communication goal. So the first thing you're going to do when you're sitting down and thinking about creating a visual or communication piece of while you're creating it, So is this going to be for advocacy? Is it going to educate a certain population? Is it purely knowledge? Translation from an academic publication is an awareness about, you know, masking in a pandemic. There are a lot of different things in reasons that somebody might, you know, be motivated to create a visual communication piece. So we're going to be using an example today as we're going through, which is, um, I'm going to be creating an integral thick on why we're going to advocate for how great control communication is. So I want to put this out and I want to communicate that everyone should be using visual condition and then you want to get a little bit more specific and you want to think about the population that you are going to be targeting. So this is your target audience. When we talk about marketing principles, that's the language you're going to hear, and you're gonna take the very same approach. When you create your visual, you're going to be thinking about here. Indicate who are you communicating with specifically with this visual. So some things that are going to let's say the influence by that population is the language that you use. So we talk about a Navratil reader. If we're trying to just put something out there for the lake immunity, we want to be yet agreed. Five reading level. So obviously using big scientific words is not an ideal situation. You can actually track the reading level of your language that you're using in any type of infergen affect by using the small index, which stands for the simple measure of gobbledygook. It sounds ridiculous, but that's actually a scientifically validated index that allows you to assess the complexity of those words together and think about maybe you know, some synonyms that might feel to communicate the same thing a little bit more simply, There's also a visual cues. So, for example, if you're talking with an older population, you know that it's going to be used in a geriatric ward. Maybe you consider increasing font size. Um, things like cultural cultural considerations are also important. So if you know that you're going to be, you know, let's say, focusing on individuals that have recently immigrated into a country. So you know that there's gonna be a lot of different context, that maybe what they're used to So think about what settings, what types of visuals that they're used to seeing and try to stick to that, Um, And like I say, the best way to do this is co creation. Can you find someone from the target population, maybe give them an honorary A. To be able to help you provide some of that for you back in in real time? I also have these little tips and tricks only in a few places. But really, when you are creating all translation, piece it. It's always a good idea to leave extra room and also be a little bit flexible in both of those ways to leave extra on traditional detail. Also be okay with removing some things. Uh, if you're, for example, or researcher in one specific type of situation, you care way more about all those details that might not be necessary to actually communicate the main idea. So again, keep your audience in mind. So for our example, Infographic, today we're going to be targeting healthcare providers on social media. So that's gonna be our audience that we're focused on. And we're going to be thinking about that. Well, we're making decisions now. The third step is to identify chemo s itches. So what are those? Key message is really them being results. The key takeaways. So the way that I recommend people do this when they're trying to, you know, take a complex academic journals or something and communicated, I say, if you had to write down three mean results titles, what would those be? And I always try to say, Well, we're working with anyone is, you know, don't have the taking messages mean more than three. You want Big Three big messages and that's it. And when you can, especially when communicating things to lay audience you want, Oh, make sure that things are action oriented. Um, as academics, healthcare providers, researcher scientists were all their good a passive language because that's how historically, um, has been communicated. We want to think about being active. We want to think about people being able to visualize themselves in that and connect with that, which means that we need to think about language that is, that is actually warranted. Do this think about this. Consider this act on this. You know where where I'm asking this pandemic, we want to be direct with it. We're cutting out there also at any point, to try to avoid paragraphs. If you need to write sentences, been trying to break them up. This is an example, like having a little tip bubble. So working things up just again, uh, is allowing you to connect with people at ah, level in which is digestible. So when we have a big bowl of text, it could be really intimidating by using something like white space, which is basically space on a page where nothing exists. We allow people to process things at their peace. We also allow ideas to be separated and organized. Not really helps do something called reduce cognitive load, which is essentially how fast were able to engage with something and interact with something. So my three main points for my example here today are that in for graphics belong in the clinic. It's a simple way to communicate and improve your communication. And there are many benefits of visual overtaxed clinic you home. So this is probably not also the most thoroughly thought example. I just came up with it yesterday. So if you're already thinking about the visual that you want to work on for your clinic than I encourage you as we go through the steps to also be thinking about your is, um and, you know, feel free to questions in the chart. This well, So the fourth pip here and the step here is to frame your story. This is going to look very different, so I don't really have any tips for this other than maybe checking out some resources for storytelling in science. Storytelling is really important as humans, especially using visuals. We make emotional connections. We want to relate to the content that we're seeing, and that's what's going to keep us engaged and interested, which means that there needs to be some kind of story that we can relate to. So what does that look like? Um so, for example, my story here is going to be that their connections made between healthcare practitioners in patients through in for a graphics pretty simple. But obviously, depending on you know the content that you're putting out, what the main message is, who your your population is, that story is going to be different. And if you can keep it aligned with the classic narrative arc, so you know there's the beginnings of middle or some conflict. There's an end. There's a resolution. There's a takeaway. You really can't go wrong because you're going to be making some sort of emotional connection. And some stories are definitely better than others. But having a story is better than not having story. It'll also Digger best look up. Some resource is try to see how others do it. You know what speaks to you when you're engaging with different visual content, see how they're doing it and try to replicate that, um, all of a graphic design really is seeing what we like and coughing it and maybe adding our own twist on it. But honestly, a lot of inspiration comes from what's already been done. Okay, so here comes the next step, which is organizing with place holders. And this is the point where I usually lose people. So I have made it into simple if a graphics in that only and and also we'll go through our example. But really, what I mean by this is you're gonna lay out the information's you're gonna list your information, and you're going to try to lay it out on a bully, a clean slate where there's no immigration. You're gonna be putting your information down on there now. This is also where some graphic design principles come in. Eso again. I think this is why people get a little bit lost here. But if we think about this again, like a protocol and their steps, hopefully it'll make it a little bit less intimidating. So the first of which is alignment. So wherever you're placing objects, a line things wherever you can, because what that'll do again is reduce. That call from the load allows to process that information. Connect with the actual the data, the knowledge quicker. So keeping things within the same plain, whether it's horizontally or vertically, and then this balance and I call these the E B. C D. So graphic design balance really is making sure that things were distributed properly. Now there's a few different ways that that kind of makes sense. One of those is that you don't want texted one area of your visual and then nothing in another reason or just graphics. So you want here text in your graphics to be distributed throughout the space that you have used all the space. Another kind of keep things with balance is that when you have multiple components, you want to make sure that they're distributed properly. So with alignment and distribution, those were both. They're both tools, air or, you know, different types of, um, I want to say like toolboxes, but obviously different programs calling different things there available for you to click and be able to use so If you have freedom on objects, highlight those objects. Click on your alignment or your distribution tools and use those that really helps keep everything clean and organized. And this is also true for publishing any type of academic scientific figures. And then there's contrast or consistency. And so when we talk about contrast, really, we're trying to guide the person who is reading or engaging with our a graphically visual that we want to direct their vision, and we want to give them a place where they can tell that there's a difference between sections. What I mean by that is your title is not going to look the same as your text. A key point that you want to highlight is not going to look the same as the title. So you want to change the way you're doing that, and there's a number of ways that you can. You couldn't use things like a bold or a bigger font to the news color you can use. Um, you know, different highlighting boxes of blow out things like that that are going to essentially show people that one component of your figure is different than another. And what This also does is that adds a little bit of, um, engagement to through the fact that you're using different components and mix of dynamic. It makes it interesting, Um, but having too much different in having too much interesting is also not a good thing. So we want to keep it consistent. Whatever method of hierarchy you're using, whatever method of contrast, you want to keep that the seat. So if you apply, let's take a text with this type of bunch. We want to make sure that our Keitel's are maintained with that people thought throughout. So people know what to expect. And again, all of this is done to reduce cognitive look and, of course, directionality. In quote unquote Western culture, what we're used to seeing is top left of the page two bottom right now, depending on the cultural context, that might not be true things, for example, like mango go backwards. But if you're engaging with the lake, um, unity and you know you're gonna be talking mainly with Western cultures and you want to think about going talk left the bottom right on the same way that let's say, a scientific poster is organized main concepts that start on the top left and then you want to guide your audience doing now guiding them through could be done in number of differently. And you can use arrows. You can use numbers. You can use those methods of contrast in the distance e to have titles that guide someone through. We know an introduction comes first, so we know to look there. We know that after a interaction, we don't jump to the results. But we look at the hypothesis or the objectives. Those are things that are parent. So let's play on those. And let's use that to our advantage to help with that directional of your flow. Okay, so what does this actually look like? What? I was recommended. You take the space that you haven't. You created Currid. Why do you do this? Because alignment and balance can be much easier if you make it into a a science in a protocol. Um, so obviously, if you're creative and you like mixing things up, you know, give it a try. Throw in. Some illustrations are some graphics. If you're not graphically inclined, do the step because it will help make whatever you put in there look good. And really, when we talk about visual communication, there's two separate categories. There's like looking nice and there's being effective at communicating. And those two things are different things. So if you follow this, I promise you the visual that you end up with will be effective. I cannot promise it would be the most beautiful Infographic. But it will work for communicate with. So when we talked about this, Okay, we have included a title. So infographics belong in the clinic. That was, you know, the main point that I want to communicate. There's a few other main points. A swell, Um Now for my story, this is kind of the I would say mean focus of my my infographic years. I want, like, a healthcare provider and I want a patient and I want some kind of a communication between them. Pretty some please. So I know that these are all the components I need, and I've also distributed the space for what I think is appropriate. A good balance of visual, a good balance of text. Um, and I like to separate things by color. So things that are related, I'll put you know the same color box and things that are different all separate them. These are just random colors. Eventually, we do create a color scheme here, but you can use whatever color. Just keep ideas that are gonna be together the same color. Keep ideas that are going to different, different colors to separate them. Now, what do you actually used to create these things? So depending on the type of software that you're interested in using on what you're still ever it, a skill level is what you know cost that you're comfortable with. You might find one more useful than another. These are some of the most popular ones on the ones that I do. Recommend it swell. So there are dragon drop programs. They're also creation based programs. If you're creative and you want to make things yourself, use these programs. If you are not a creative and you want to be able to in a platform, pick things, drag them, drop them where you want them, used these programs here, the top row here and again, you'll get these slides, so don't worry about getting it down. But there's factor and those raster vector forms of illustrations are basically, um, are basically encoded data, but, um, are, let's say, like an equation for a lie, So we know that why equals two X plus something, and so what? What that will do means that as you increase the size of a visual, you're not going to lose any quality because the same data would look the same at any size. When we talk about raster images, those air pixel base, which means that they're little colors, little square color and obviously when you compress a little where colors, it looks great. But as you blow it up, let's say for scientific host or you do lose quality. Um, and where you kind if you have the option between a p E, N J and J. Peg go the route of a pea inj. So those are all just little Akram's for the ends, but they're little things to note that are helpful. All these programs are great to use for different situations. Just find a program. The most important thing is that you're comfortable with that. You're comfortable adjusting things you don't want to get frustrated. You don't want to spend hours trying to learn adobe sweet for something that might not be worth it for something you can do, Let's say in Canada, which, by the way, this presentation, all graphics you're seeing here was remaining can't but drag and drop out for him. Um, I can illustrate things myself, but I like using the tools that are simple to show people that you couldn't make it. You know pretty things. You can make effective things with the pot forms that provides you with those tools. You don't need to be making everything yourself. Um, okay, So now there's image Bank. Resource is they're all gonna come up here ton of them for you to pick from and go through an explorer. Some of them have icon. Some of them are just the hyperlinks. Either way, you'll have access to this, and hopefully the hyperlinks will be embedded so you can click on, um now moving on to the next step, which is building a color palette. For some people, this is the funnest part For some people, this is the most stressful part. Um, my rule is always to keep things physiological. So illustrate components. I usually see them in nature. If you're drawing blood vessel. Try not to make it fuchsia. You know, people are used to seeing red, and then you don't. You have to label things also, you want to keep accessibility in mind here, too. So there's different visual abilities. Some people are not gonna be, you know, able to engage with your visual. If you're not thinking about these things, one of those important things is contrast. And the other is combining our so so different visual abilities, meaning, like color blindness. So you want to combine things like color and pattern. And if you're gonna overlap color and people can't differentiate them and you're not really sure, how do you know? Test for it, then Just include a pattern, Have you know something with polka dot So, um, and something blank. And what that'll do is even if that color is not able to be distinguished, the pattern will help with that. Um, so the steps are to first get inspired, then you want to pick your color, and then you want to check it for for accessibility. So I've given you some tools here again. I'm not gonna go through those. You can click on them and where, and but I don't want to give you an example of how I picked the color palette for my, um, for graphic. I literally Googled healthcare communication. I copy and pasted the first thing that came above goal, which is this visual? The first infographic and I went to Adobe Color, which is really available of mine, and I put it into It's extracted team and I got a color skin. And then I went to the next tab, which they have, which is accessibility to ALS, which I absolutely love. That they added, because this is a new and it includes a color blind, safe checker you can actually look through there. It also includes contract Trucker and some other different options. But as you can see, it will inform you on what colors are okay to use together or what or not. And what color is that might have some issue with contrast with. So these are things Teo incident. Then you might have to change one or two colors, but the reality of the situation for most color palettes is that you just have to know which ones that you can overlap or put together So, for example, this pink and this orange, depending on some Hix of these color blindness, are going to look quite similar. So you don't want to be overlapping. Let's see that pink with a credit color. Okay, so now we are picking her color scheme. We can apply it. We're gonna break this up into some of those colors that was selected. So I like the blue for the title. I kept that the same. This is going to be changed to be the visuals. And then I like how my kind of take away my main take a message. The big kind of you know, the big information is highlighted defending. Okay. And so then we move on to selecting a thought. There are two main categories of fucked, one of which is an therapy. And the other, which is Sarah San Serif, are basically the techs that you see without this little dash. So San serif don't have any little dash is offends. That's the syrup or shin. Since they're of text or more modern, they're more approachable. They're also more typographical deficient. So that's basically the legibility and also the efficiencies to the speed and the ease at what you can read something. So while Sara funds are kind of more classic and perceived is professional, it's really quite unformed at this point to be consistently using Serevent. So we know that they're not accessible and they're not as typographic the vision. If we're scientists and we like practising evidence based anything, let's also practice evidence based communication and go this way. I always see treats about people complaining about comments, it comic Sands and I always comment Well, you know, that's like one of the most accessible font. So prop, for example, actinic teachers were using. These are really trying to make it so that everyone can understand the text that's including their sides. And that's not a bad thing. Just because it doesn't look, you know, quote unquote societally professional. So here's some to the tools for texted also explains. There's, um, some explanatory things on the different types of fonts and and how you might think about using on this wall. Um, so this is my little help box. So if you're not inclined graphically follow this rule, you could stay with missing family, um, and essentially choose the black version for a header The Boulder Television for a subtitle in the Body Texting You can't Go Wrong with that, so highlighted how that looks for a bunch of different types of families. There's also, you know, if you're going outside of the sample on finally want to get a little bit more creative. Pick a header with a lot of personality. That's why I say, like if if texts could have personalities, you want to pick something that big and bold. Subtitles have a little bit of personality, and then your body text make sure it's playing Easter read. So these air, the things that I picked and honestly, they were some of the first that came upon Can Va and I just like them so that just to show you how easy this can be, Um, and so let's apply our text s o new fonts that we've added in in our new mantra collection. And then comes swapping and visual. So we have our place holders for more pen individuals. Now it's time to choose what visuals are actually going to use, whether we're going to illustrate thumb or not. The idea here is to use the simplest type of visual that matches the type of style or look you're going for. The simpler you go, the easier it is for individuals to understand. So again, we're all about reducing that cognitive load and communicating as efficiently as possible, which means that if your style is, you know, illustrations, that's fine. Just try to go for something that simple that can communicate it. So I always say I comes first, if you can. If not, then go for graphics. I separate graphics and illustrations. This isn't like official thing is just something that I would have done to explain. So this is what I call a graphic is just so that's like studio. There's not really any shadows or highlights. And then this is what I would call an illustration. So getting a little bit fancier or some detail here, maybe some feeding and then obviously pictures are going to be the most complex things, and those are things you want to stay away from. Obviously, you can always if you're for example, trying to show like a specific structure from an electro, my my cross, the image you're going to need to use actual image to communicate what you want to, so I think what you can that's going to communicate. I know what you like in the simplest way. So moving forward, I picked some some graphics predetermined graphics on campus took me three seconds and applied or color scheme, and it's starting to come together now. Obviously, there's a health care professional on the patient, but I don't really see the connection between them. So let's let's feel about him, All right, So we've added in the connection between these two patients with something else. Looks like an infant graphic. Clever. Maybe I don't know. I go. I searched in the image bank Infographic, and one of these things came up and I was like, Okay, that's actually a good connection between these two individuals. And then they added the same things that you saw the beginning. So the exact same icons to communicate those key findings, and then we want to simplify and label thing. So I was like, Okay, there's a little bit of empty space. We could probably adds more details. I added in the little tip it that I had it the beginning, and then I also noticed, Okay, this was kind of complex of the bottom. So I lined everything, kept everything within the same plain and organized it horizontally to balance. It is well, so simplifying some of those more complex elements and the last step is pilot testing. This is very good. Ask you. What do you think of this in for affect? If you saw it on social media, throw it in the chart. What are things that you would change? Recommend? I need this in about 10 minutes. So it's probably not perfect and the same with any type of research or clinical, Um, technique or tool. You can always get better at it. So obviously, you know, there's always room for improvement. And the pilot testing is really not a check box. I love to hear your thoughts on this. We could share it on Twitter would like. It's only part from that. I have that when I think be good for facilitating this. Um, so just in summary here and we can always go back to try to about that as well. I hope that I've answered some of these questions. So why we think about using visual communication? Um, you know where you can look for somebody who actually help you if you're interested. This is actually a career, and it is. And it's a lot of fun. And then, of course, you know, hopefully you have some tools, and you have some, you know, different resource is to go to, and again the size will be available is that you can just click and find what you need. Um, and then I'd like to say thank you very much. Um, for Aqua for inviting me and fill for putting this on. Um, and of course, all of you for being here and in this nice Arabs, um, fatigue for listening to me talk for way too long. Um, and hopefully you weren't bored. Hopefully, you're engaged. Tried to use a lot of visuals. Yeah, but let me know if you have any feedback. Any questions? Um, if you want to connect with me those you know, my my details there feel free to email me with anything. Um, yeah, and that's pretty much it. Thank you very much. Thank you so much. We got some nice comments in the chat on, but we all found the infographic way more aesthetic than the left. Like text? No, thank you. Yeah, well, that's good, because that's what we're trying to get across. Um, yeah. Any type of, um, questions about anything. If you have a piece that you like back on, I'm happy to Teo. Get common form out as well. If you have any questions, guys, please do drop thumb. I think we'll stick around for another couple of minutes. Otherwise, I will let summer ago afterwards. Thank you so much for coming. And, um, when we hope to disseminate your slides, we'll make sure that your company and you'll, you know, contact like, started everywhere. Thank you. It's always great, big able to catch it with a new new populations. And to share this because I think it's just such a great tool that is just generally younger used starting to become a thing. I think it's especially the last few years of the pen Demi. We started to realize how important it is to, like quickly get information out there in an effective way. So, you know, there's been a lot of bad things about this pain emmick. But there's also been some definite, you know, benefits to learning how to communicate effectively from at everyone in the healthcare field from, you know, the fundamental scientist to the surgeons who don't have time to do much of anything else like everyone is learning how important it is to be able to communicate quickly and effectively know 100% agree. I think the pandemic did help the night. I've hear that the woman who made Can Va is probably one of the most successful businesswoman. It's currently I love it, you know, like it's absolutely fantastic. It's so easy to use. Um, obviously I don't use it for, like, my professional stuff, but her presentations and things or people are like, Well, how did you do this? I want to show them, but it's easy to do when you don't. It's doable. Yeah, I don't need to be an illustrator to do these things. I literally took the first image, stole the color scheme, applied it and other than those copies and, you know, picking and choosing. So design is accessible dizzyness for everybody, you know. Thank you so much. I exhausted my questions, and my curiosity is, yeah, it's kind of a hard topic, Dad, you ask questions, and I just hope I didn't lose anyone. And people were engaged by Look forward to connect you with you up One also everyone who was attending. I hope you learned something, and that least took away a few tools and resources. Um, see, I think you're good. Yeah. Thank you. Oh, I think we'll draw that to a close. Thank you so much. And, uh, go back to the main stage because we will have announcements and prizes. Um, in a couple of minutes. Thank you. So enjoy the rest of the session by everyone by.