The hospital as magazine design
Over at the appropriately titled Designing Magazines blog Jandos Rothstein recounts his recent experience navigating a hospital. "Awkward" is one of the words he uses. That leads Rothstein to speculate what an appropriate design might be for a magazine aimed at hospital administrators:
Nearly all hospitals are as byzantine as this one—hapless patients and visitors, many under stress, are forced to following colored dots or stripes or Latinate signage down miles of twisting corridor, all for the privilege of giving a urine sample. Why? One is forced to conclude that doctors, unlike mere people, find this all intuitive—perhaps even comforting and nurturing. Perhaps it seems simple, as compared to the majesty that is the circulatory system.
So, given this, how would you organize a theoretical magazine for hospital administrators?—they are probably baffled by the Dick and Jane simplicity of ordinary magazine and newspaper structure. I’m thinking there would need to be a separate numbering system for the tops and bottoms of pages; a supplement that could only be accessed when the main book is turned to page 43; and probably interwoven articles that one could read by following a color-coded text. But what mere designer has a mind, um, “scientific” enough to design it? The only option might be to hire an MD to [design director].
Of course, for an another explanation there's Foucault. He argued that the design of hospitals was just another way of exerting control.
-Greg Dahlmann
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