Stairgazing

What happens when 10 students studying nutrition writing pair up with 10 students studying advanced illustration? The UIC Applied Health Science Building gets 10 beautiful posters for its first-ever stairwell messaging campaign.

“The goal was to provide sound nutrition science to anyone taking the stairs,” says Amy McNeil, who developed and teaches the nutrition course involved. “Presenting that information visually makes it so much more interesting and easy to absorb.”

Research from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that physical improvements to stairwells, including motivational signage, can increase the use of stairs by occupants of multistory workplaces.

Each poster offers beautifully presented, useful information as well as a QR code that takes readers to more details, recipes, shopping tips and the like.

“Most of our students will go into careers working for and with clients,” says John Daugherty, BVIS program director and instructor for the illustration students who took part. “In this, they got good experience and exposure to real client relationships.”

“Collaboration is never all smooth sailing,” adds McNeil, “and working through differences of opinion is where the learning happens. That’s what collaboration is.”