Passport to
Magnet Excellence
Internal Campaign & Award Design
ANCC Magnet Recognition is the nation's highest honor for nursing excellence. This year long project was supported with a wide range of specially designed content from emails, posters, and banners to award emblems and announcement graphics.
The Goal
Build employee engagement across Rutland Regional Medical Center to satisfy Magnet redesignation requirements and receive a prestigious fourth designation.
The Design Strategy
Make it Fun
Center graphics around a global travel theme to mark the organization's journey
Keep it Simple
Digest dense layers of information into easy to understand graphics
Work With Flexible Design Features
Assets for this campaign were needed in all different dimensions and formats so flexibility in application was a must
Timelines
One month to design initial campaign
and one week to design new award
My Role
Graphic Designer
Campaign Logo
The logo was designed with a globe to match the campaign's fun travel theme. The font was chosen for its design reminiscent of old treasure maps and the blue banner is shaped as an award banner reminding all that this is a journey to nursing excellence.
Sprinkling in Some Fun With Passport Stamps
Each segment within the campaign was given a type of travel as a theme. The passport stamps represent their corresponding travel theme and orient employees to where we stand over the course of the journey. This was achieved by ensuring each stamp design looked unique. The stamp's color was placed on all corresponding assets during the segment to let employees know which it fell under.
Getting Extra Miles Out of a Flexible Design
The main components for this campaign included the grainy beige map to match the old treasure map association, the campaign logo, and the passport stamps. Each offered a high level of flexibility to create any dimension or type of asset needed including event posters, post cards, educational flyers with nursing initiative stories for each segment, digital signage, and more!
We did it! Now to Update the Award Design
Towards the end of our year long campaign, we received a hint that all our hard work paid off which meant it was time to revisit the Magnet award emblem and revise the design to mark four consecutive Magnet designations – an incredible feat that only 1.8% of hospitals nationally have achieved.
Design Challenges
Strict Usage Guidelines
Magnet's logo has strict guidelines around usage. Violating them could mean losing Magnet status all together.
Designing Without Confirmation
The Magnet organization could not tell us the results before the official call. This meant preparing for all options.
Tight Deadlines – High Stakes
A hint was given just one week before the call. This design would be used on almost all organization materials for the next five years so it had to be just right.
The 2020 Design
For context, the official Magnet credentialing mark is only the green shape to the left. One of the usage requirements is that nothing comes within .25" on all sides of the official mark. The biggest challenge here was designing to show both pieces as one while also finding a way to incorporate a fourth year into the list.
Many, Many Design Iterations
I set off finding solutions to these challenges by testing ideas and iterating through many, many sets of designs.
I focused on pulling elements from the official mark and copying them within ours to strengthen the impression that it's all one design. I also strived to stay true to the 2020 design so that it still felt familiar to the organization.
After Some Back and Forth, the Design Was Decided
Bad News in the Ninth Hour
With approval from hospital and nursing leaders, it was time to run it past our Magnet representative to ensure all guidelines and requirements were met. However, upon sending the design for review, we discovered that Magnet had updated their official credentialing mark. 24 hours before the announcement, the design was back to square one.
An Even Greater Amount of Iterations
With the new credential mark also came an even higher level of achievement, Magnet with Distinction (marked by it's gold band on the end). Without confirmation of which we would receive, designing for both was the only way to ensure we were ready with celebration graphics immediately after the call.
The Final
After presenting my top three designs, the nursing and I were able to make any last edits settling on a design just in time.
Ready Just in Time
By the morning, we had a final design with posters, social media posts, and digital signage ready to go.
