Waiting room poster
Academic ethnography project to demonstrate the importance of observing social dynamics in spaces related to health.
We are enhancing physical activity, routine, and mental health by decreasing loneliness and isolation through pet fostering services designed for seniors.
Source: Adobe Stock
Source: Adobe Stock
People sit there waiting for as long as it takes in silence. Finding something to do isn't easy because concentration is a luxury that most people do not allow themselves under these circumstances.
This poster plays the role of a distraction like Highmore proposes “I want to suggest that it is more productive to think of distraction as the mobility of attention as it turns-away-from while turning-towards its objects; or the tenacity of attention as it is compelled by its object (perhaps against the odds); or the attention-in-waiting of forms of boredom, vacancy, and absentmindedness.” (Highmore 2011: 118) Distraction in waiting rooms plays a beneficial but momentary role. In the end, each person experiences waiting and distraction differently, whether or not it fuels anxiety or tranquility.
This is a set of 3 posters. The intention of using a variety of colors is to provoke different feelings. In addition, having three posters in the same place capture the public's attention more easily.
The poster contains three words in Spanish.
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"Pausa" uses Antique Light Face Extended Reversed. The characteristics of this style allow me to play with contrasts. In this case, the letters are white with a colored background.
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"Sólo" is in the font Clarendon Extended, and the accent for the "O," which is an "i" in the font Octagon. For both words, the font size is large enough to cover two-thirds of the poster size.
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"Respira," arranged vertically with a downward direction, uses Grecian. All type font from The Rob Roy Kelly American Wood Type Collection.
This poster is intended to distract people in the surgery waiting rooms. It is common to see posters around this place, most of them with happy people during chemo sessions or maybe after having a baby. I don't have the intention to be a fatalist. However, the last thing you want to see is people smiling around you when you are immersed in the overthinking cycle. "For a period, short or extended, an individual or a collective finds itself placed in a situation where what is hoped for or anxiously anticipated has not yet been actualized." (Bandak, Janeja 2020: 1). It doesn't matter if your beloved one is undergoing routine surgery, the waiting is always accompanied by anxiety and uncertainty.
This poster provokes internal conversation and leads to acceptance of the present.
References
Cerrato, Herman. "The meaning of colors." The graphic designer (2012).
Highmore, Ben. Ordinary Lives, Studies in the Everyday. Routledge. New York (2011) Chapter V : “Absentminded media” (114-138)
Janeja, Manpreet K., and Andreas Bandak. “Introduction: Worth the Wait.” Introduction. In Ethnographies of Waiting: Doubt, Hope and Uncertainty, 1–40. Abingdon, Oxon, NY: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.
Janeja, Manpreet K., Andreas Bandak, and Craig Jeffrey. “Foreword.” Foreword. In Ethnographies of Waiting: Doubt, Hope and Uncertainty. Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2020.
Scotland-Coogan, Diane, Davis, Erin. “Relaxation Techniques for Trauma.” Journal of Evidence-Informed Social Work 13, no. 5 (2016): 434–41. https://doi.org/10.1080/23761407.2016.1166845.