There are many ways to implement and integrate visuals into your medical communication work without breaking budgets.
Read on to find out how medical communicators find tips for using graphics, resources for royalty-free images, and tools for creating infographics.
Visual communication is an essential skill in today’s world, and medical communication and education are continuing to explore new digital frontiers.
When medical communicators know how to seamlessly integrate visual elements such as graphics, maps, infographics, and images into their work, they can advance medical knowledge and engage with new audiences.
Visual elements can help you tell a story quickly, simplify complex information and data, improve health literacy, and make a lasting impression in readers’ minds.
An AMWA Journal article, “Think and Communicate Visually,” based on a presentation at the 2018 AMWA Medical Writing & Communication Conference, includes a discussion of how to select appropriate visuals to support health care content.
Where do medical communicators find tools and resources to build visually compelling narratives?
Not all medical communicators have the design skills to create their own images. Thankfully, there are a number of online sites available to meet this need. Note that some sites may place restrictions on use, e.g., educational versus commercial. In all cases, double-check each site’s permissions policy before using images.
The following are government and academic sources for images.
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) maintains a Public Health Image Library (PHIL) that includes thousands of photos and illustrations that are either public domain (and can be used freely) or copyright protected (you’ll need to obtain permission to use). See the FAQ page for more information on using the PHIL, which has featured collections of images related to influenza, natural disasters, environmental health, health behaviors, public health, and more.
The Health Education Assets Library (HEAL) has thousands of health sciences materials available for medical communicators. The collections include images related to hematology, dermatology, anatomy, neuroscience, oral cavity, placenta, respiratory system, and more.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) also maintains an image library that includes a Spanish-language collection, science and technology, childhood cancer, anatomy, historical images, and B-roll videos.
The NIH also provides access to images on its Flikr gallery.
Openi is an open access biomedical image search engine housed with the NIH National Library of Medicine.
A number of private sites also offer a wealth of images that can be used for free or with reasonably priced subscriptions.
Biorender is a website that gives medical communicators access to thousands of icons and templates that have been designed by professional science illustrators. It is free for personal use and offers subscriptions for individual, team, and enterprise plans.
Flaticon is a site where you can download free icons and stickers.
Iconfinder has 2D and 3D illustrations, AI-created illustrations, and other tools that can be useful for medical communicators.
Pixabay is not specifically for medical communicators, but it includes myriad royalty-free photos, illustrations, videos, and more.
Visual storytelling is a special skill that can be honed through experience, and many resources are available to help create engaging visual content, including infographics.
Writing for infographics must be concise and targeted, working with the images to tell a good story. This Skyword blog post by Jackie Lam suggests homing in on a single message or topic while keeping in mind the big picture of what you want to convey in the graphic.
The University of Michigan’s Visualizing Health site offers a “Scientifically Vetted Style Guide for Communicating Health Data.” It includes tools such as an Icon Array Generator and a Risk Calculator.
For a good example of an excellent infographic, see the CDC’s infographic on preventing hearing loss.
The following sites include useful tools for creating infographics. Some may charge for the use of their content; check their permissions policies.
Not every audience member will be able to benefit from the full impact of infographics unless the design accommodates the needs of people with limited color vision or color blindness. The following are some resources to use to design inclusive infographics.
COBLIS color blindness simulator
There is both a science and an art to communicating accurate scientific and medical information to the public.
If you are looking for resources for collaborating with professional designers, Figma has a variety of tools, including an online whiteboard and brainstorming templates.
AMWA’s online learning activity Ten Characteristics of Effective Tables and Graphs and the self-study course Tables and Graphs, part of the AMWA Essential Skills program, offer opportunities to explore visual storytelling in health care.
When medical communicators use all the tools at their disposal, they find endless possibilities for depicting data, illustrating key concepts, and creating memorable, visual stories.
AMWA acknowledges the contributions of Cyndy Kryder, MS, MWC, in the development of this AMWA resource and Jodie Rothschild for peer review.