VNS Health
Successful designs that reinforce the brand identity of this home- and community-based healthcare organization, and support VNS Health’s mission.
About the project
For over fifteen years now, I’ve collaborated with VNS Health (formerly Visiting Nurse Service of New York) to design a wide variety of print and digital pieces: in-house and community newsletters, themed series and health event flyers, promotional kits, invitations, posters, mastheads, illustrations, brochures, and Total Care guides.
Overview
VNS Health, as one of the largest not-for-profit home- and community-based healthcare organizations in the country, does amazing work. It provides a health education and important resources to tens of thousands of New Yorkers so that they can continue to live in their homes and in their community.
Innovative Design Solutions
I designed each brochure, newsletter, invitation, and Total Care guide as a distinctive piece. I designed flexible formats or uniquely shaped and sized pieces that graphically stand out. I selected photography that reinforces VNS Health’s brand identity. My goal is to create effective pieces that will engage the reader. Whether it’s a Stay Healthy flyer or a bereavement newsletter, I see my role as a designer to highlight how VNS Health provides a health education and important resources to the community.
Roles
Lead Designer, Branding, Creative Director, Production Supervisor, Printer Liaison, Project Management
Team
Christine Hauck, Lead Designer; I worked with the VNS Health Marketing and Communications team; and I worked with the VNS Health Hospice Care Team and with their Hospice Care Bereavement Counselors.
Key Projects
My goal is to create distinctive designs for VNS Health that reinforce its brand identity, support its initiatives and its central mission of community collaboration.
For VNS Health’s Total Care guide, I conceived and created a smaller pocket-sized guide that was easy to thumb through with a colorful index clearly indicating where the services were offered in all five boroughs of New York City as well as Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties. I selected the best candid photos were for each program and cropped them and typeset the guide to be easy to read. This handy new guide became widely used by VNS Health’s employees on the many services that are offered to patients.
Frontline Focus
For VNS Health’s special Frontline Focus issue on Building Relationships, I chose the best photographs from the photoshoot to feature, and I also selected quotes to highlight each caregiver and patient relationship. To illustrate the “Letters” section I hired a photographer to shoot a collage of letters received by VNS Health Care workers.
Stay Healthy flyers
For VNS Health’s Stay Healthy flyers, I created a Stay Healthy masthead design within a versatile grid format for copy and graphic images. This flyer layout was easily adaptable later for Stay Healthy flyers translated into Chinese, Korean, Spanish, and Russian.
Care Pages
VNS Health’s CarePage was a two-sided flyer created for VNS Health Hospice Care. It showed patients how to create a free CarePage online to keep in touch with family members and friends. In designing the flyer, I included both the CarePages logo and the VNSNY logo. I also included a screenshot of a CarePage with callouts to show what the CarePage looked like online and how to navigate it.
Care Matters Flyers
VNS Health’s Care Matters flyers were designed to educate and support the community about important health issues affecting patients in Hospice. I created the Care Matters masthead design within a clean layout with light grey type and selected graphic images illustrating key points made.
Seasons of Life Newsletter
VNSNY’s Seasons of Life newsletter was originally designed as a 4-color, 8-page print newsletter in a magazine format. Now, VNS Health’s Seasons of Life Newsletter has been redesigned after VNSNY went through a rebranding. The Seasons of Life newsletter reflects this new rebranding, font choice and color palette. It is posted online in two parts as a Calendar of Workshops and special events and feature articles written by its VNS Health Hospice Bereavement counselors. In each newsletter, I feature current workshops and future special events, choose graphics, highlight quotes or poems for feature articles, create floating sidebars with participant quotes about each workshop and match them with graphic images or photographs.