Back in 2013, in order to approach Information Design tasks, Esteban Javier Rico, one of the Head Teachers in Graphic Design at the FADU (the Architecture and Design branch of the University of Buenos Aires), proposed a brief joint activity with the Hospital de Infecciosas F. J. Muñiz de Buenos Aires (Hospital for Infectious Diseases, F. J. Muñiz).
The idea was to design vertical 90x60 cm Posters that provided information about threats and risks that a traveller is subjected to while on Holiday, and how these could be best prevented or avoided by either having the right information beforehand and a proper check once back home.
The intention was to employ graphic tools to convey information easily, in different levels, ranging from data that could be caught at one glimpse to more complex statistics and comparisons that would require the explanation of a qualified professional and potentially be useful for the Servicio de Medicina Tropical y Medicina del Viajero (Service of Tropical Medicine and Medicine for the Traveller) to utilise in the future.
The class benefited from the insight and experience of the, at the time, chief Doctor of the aforementioned department, Dr. Tomás Agustín Orduna, who enthusiastically conveyed what the usual visit by someone about to travel was like and what he found was the outcome of the lack of pre-trip consultations.
This work focused on projecting the three main tools of prevention against what were the 7 most common acquired diseases and viruses in four different countries, set in the context of what were the two most popular ways of travelling to these destinations in that decade: shopping trip to Chile or Resort Holidays in Brazil, and a Road Trip involving Northern Argentina, Bolivia, and Peru.
Furthermore, the diseases were divided in categories and their percentages were put against those of the categories of most common medicines or ways of prevention, in order to show the effectiveness of the latter over the former, with clear indication of the quantities and in a way that the perspective employed did not hinder clarity.
The main section depicted above, the first one created, also added conditions to measure the risk by analysing the maximum heights and average weather temperature by city or town, and also the amount of time spent travelling so far accumulating.
The second section, instead, quickly summarised the most relevant aspects of the previous graphic into a smaller, three dimensional construction that also added the cycle of a condition spreading further once the traveller had returned and how that translated into percentages for the 10 most prominent viruses present in the 4 countries.
The third part had more complex information charts and hard data further developing the first chart and also locating symptoms and characteristics of these afflictions in the body of each type of traveller.
All the chart and icon systems, graphics and illustrations had to be original, whereas the information was provided in sets randomly allocated to each student.
Types employed were OCR-B 10 BT for captions and titles, Frutiger LT Std for text.
