Featuring a baby with an African heritage.

Week by Week Foetal Development for a Health App

Visualising foetal development for expectant parents

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Client: Project created for App Baby Steps
Medium: Painted using Photoshop Graphics Tools

Foetal Development Illustrations Featuring a Baby of Colour

The Brief for the Creation of the Medical Illustrations for an App

Over the years Medical-artist.com have been creating medical illustrations for a huge variety of audiences. The audience for this intended audience was of persons with an African heritage. The goal, therefore, to create a set of anatomical illustrations intended for expectant parents to learn about the development of their baby. The client was keen to fill the gap with culturally specific medical illustrations to promote inclusiveness and cultural competency and to empower women and parents of colour.

Our first aim was to create a series of 40 separate illustrations at a size suitable for use within the App. The client had already commissioned a pervious set of caucasian foetal development illustrations from Medical-Artist.com. This set was of a similar nature, reflecting the same stages, with the difference that the fully developed foetus would be born with a darker skin tone that reflected parents who both had an African heritage.

To start, we carried out research regarding foetal development to ensure a clinical accuracy within the illustrations. One key aspect throughout our work processes has been to produce work for varying ethnic cultures and since 2017 we have slowly been building our illustration library that features people with white, black and brown skin.

“Joanna has a great eye for detail and the illustrations were loved by everyone, most especially by the client.”Stuart Banks, Digital Project Manager, Frontera
“Joanna was right at home working with us to develop illustrations that both met our clinical needs and fit perfectly into the aesthetics of our user interface. Her work is superb!”Michael Gold , Director of Product Development, CareCloud
“We have now received the new folder with your illustrations: I love it!”Lisa Ruckstuhl - Product Manager Osteoporosis, Daiichi Sankyo (Schweiz) AG
“I’m really pleased with how the book finally looks and that is in part huge thanks to Jo for such fantastic and skilled art. The level of detail that Jo achieves is incredible and her medical knowledge clearly abounds. She is always such a pleasure to work with – nothing is too big or small a job. It was all approached with the same cheery manner! Jo always delivered on deadlines too, which is a huge relief to us designers! Many thanks – it has indeed been a pleasure. I would have no hesitation to recommend Jo!”Senior Designer, Duncan Baird Publishers
“Joanna and her team are a pleasure to work with. They are responsive and creative. They turned around several excellent animations and drawings for our video series. We certainly would enjoy working with them again!”David Mathison, MD, MBA, Associate Director of Pediatric Transport, Children's National Medical Center and Assistant Professor of Pediatrics & Emergency Medicine, George Washington University School of Medicine
“Joanna has provided the core illustrations for a number of our iPad Apps, and her illustrations have received terrific reviews from our users. She understands our requirements clearly and also understands the specifics of illustrating for digital media and mobile applications. The quality of her work is outstanding, and she can be relied upon to hit deadlines and deliver to the exact clinical requirements of each project.”Todd Morgan, Co-Founder, drawMD
“Hello Tim and Joanna,
Thank you for the illustrations, you have done an outstanding job on the finished articles… The service provided was efficient and very thorough, we were very happy with the way you able to understand and translate the brief into an illustration which captured the desired output.”Clare Lynex, Senior Medical Writer, UBM Media Asia, Singapore
“We found medical-artist.com to be energetic, imaginative, and efficient, a joy to work with!”Dr Sam Alberti, Director of Museums and Archives, Royal College of Surgeons of England, London