Graphic Design · UX/UI Thinking · Visual Systems · Information Design · Project Management

Turning antibiotic stewardship guidance into a patient-ready communication system.

For CDC's Be Antibiotics Aware dental brochure, I translated dense clinical guidance into a six-panel experience designed to help patients scan, understand, and act on essential information.

The work combined editorial design, reusable campaign assets, information hierarchy, data emphasis, stakeholder review, and print-production discipline - with system consistency guiding every panel.

See the information architecture View the visual system
  • Visual Design
  • UX/UI Design Thinking
  • Design Systems
  • Data Visualization
  • Project Management
  • Print Production
Exterior side of the CDC Be Antibiotics Aware dental tri-fold brochure.
Be Antibiotics Aware six-panel brochure communication system preview.
6-panel communication system One visual language across guidance, data, risk, and action.

Project overview

The challenge was to organize medical guidance without making the brochure feel clinical, dense, or difficult to navigate.

I treated the tri-fold like a compact interface: define the user's reading path, establish reusable visual rules, and make every panel serve one clear communication purpose.

My role

Graphic design, UX/UI thinking, information architecture, visual-system definition, asset coordination, and print-production support.

Audience

Dental patients needing clear guidance, with dental professionals able to use the brochure as a conversation aid.

System thinking

Reusable color, type, icon, image, callout, and panel patterns kept the communication consistent across both sides.

Deliverable

A print-ready CDC tri-fold brochure supported by modular Illustrator assets and an InDesign production file.

01

The challenge

Antibiotic use, side effects, resistance, dental treatment, and patient actions all had to fit into one small folded format.

02

The goal

Create a credible, approachable piece that helps readers find the right information quickly without losing clinical context.

03

The response

Build a modular visual system, prioritize action-oriented content, and use repeated patterns to lower cognitive load from panel to panel.

Audience + UX/UI thinking

I designed the reading experience around what a patient needs to understand first, not around the order the source content arrived.

The brochure supports quick scanning in a care environment. Large questions establish orientation, bullets reduce reading friction, and high-value callouts make the next action obvious.

  • Lead with relevance: Start with the question patients are most likely to ask - whether antibiotics are needed.
  • Chunk the guidance: Separate treatment, side effects, resistance, and oral-health behaviors into distinct information zones.
  • Design for scanning: Use strong headings, bullets, images, and short callouts instead of uninterrupted text.
  • Build trust: Keep CDC identity, campaign branding, source information, and clinical imagery visible without overwhelming the message.
Exterior brochure spread showing patient actions, oral-health guidance, cover messaging, photography, and campaign branding.
Patient-facing hierarchy. The exterior balances a direct cover question with action steps, preventive care, photography, campaign identity, and a trusted CDC resource path.

Information architecture

I treated the tri-fold as a six-panel interface with a deliberate reading path.

Each panel has one primary job. That makes the folded experience easier to enter from different points while preserving a coherent message when the brochure is fully opened.

Exterior
01

Patient actions

What to ask, take, and follow up on.

02

Oral health

Preventive behaviors and reinforcing guidance.

03

Cover / entry point

A direct question, clinical image, and campaign identity.

Interior
04

Treatment guidance

What antibiotics treat and what they do not.

05

Side effects

Risk cues, symptoms, and when to seek help.

06

Resistance + data

One key statistic, resistance explanation, and final takeaway.

Exterior side of the tri-fold brochure.
Exterior: awareness, action, oral health, and campaign entry point.
Interior side of the tri-fold brochure.
Interior: treatment guidance, side effects, resistance, data, and final action message.

Visual system + reusable design rules

I built consistency through tokens, repeatable components, and a managed asset library - not by styling each panel independently.

The scope was a campaign communication system rather than an enterprise product library, but the transferable design-system behaviors are the same: define reusable rules, separate components from content, and protect consistency through QA.

Color tokens

One health-focused palette

#086EBCBlue #078A9CTeal #F57A1FOrange #FFFFFFWhite
Type roles

Predictable hierarchy

Reusable components

Content patterns repeat

Campaign identity and asset governance system showing logo variations, color tokens, typography, reusable assets, and organized source files.
Reusable system thinking. Campaign identity, color, typography, modular assets, and file organization were treated as controlled design resources rather than one-off artwork.

Component reuse

Headings, bullets, image blocks, statistics, and callouts follow repeatable patterns instead of one-off treatments.

Asset governance

Campaign logo, CDC badge, bacteria illustration, and side-effect icon set were maintained as separate source assets for controlled reuse.

Layout rules

Panel boundaries, spacing, rounded callouts, imagery, and hierarchy stay consistent across the exterior and interior spreads.

Quality control

Consistency checks protect typography, linked assets, brand application, fold-aware placement, and print-ready output.

Data visualization + iconography

The brochure uses data selectively: one high-value statistic becomes an attention anchor, while icons make risk information easier to scan.

This was not a dashboard. The information-design decision was to emphasize the statistic that added context, then support more complex health concepts with simple visual cues.

2018 brochure statistic 9.8%

of outpatient antibiotics were prescribed by dentists

25.4M

prescriptions represented by that share

Visual priority

The statistic sits inside a high-contrast teal callout so it can be understood before the reader reaches the longer resistance explanation.

Interior brochure spread showing treatment guidance, side-effect icons, a 2018 prescribing statistic, and antibiotic-resistance messaging.
Information density with hierarchy. Data, symptoms, explanatory text, illustrations, and action messages are visually separated so the reader can prioritize what matters.
Side-effect icon set showing rash, dizziness, nausea, diarrhea, and yeast infection.
Icon system

Side effects become scan targets

Illustrated symptoms create faster visual entry points than text alone and maintain a consistent teal-and-orange visual language.

Illustration showing bacteria changing and spreading antibiotic resistance.
Concept visualization

Resistance becomes a simple sequence

The illustration reduces an abstract public-health concept to a left-to-right visual story that supports the written explanation.

Project management + production

The design work also required coordinating content, linked assets, revisions, and print constraints as one production system.

I structured the work so creative decisions and production decisions stayed connected - reducing the risk of visual inconsistency, broken assets, or last-stage layout problems.

  1. 01

    Requirements + content inventory

    Identify audience needs, campaign requirements, statistics, clinical guidance, logos, illustrations, and final print specifications.

  2. 02

    System + layout build

    Establish grid, panel roles, typography, color, callouts, image treatments, and reusable Illustrator assets inside the InDesign layout.

  3. 03

    Review + refinement

    Coordinate content and design feedback, refine hierarchy, confirm labels and visuals, and keep changes synchronized across both sides.

  4. 04

    Preflight + handoff

    Verify linked assets, image quality, fold-aware placement, typography, brand consistency, and print-ready PDF output.

Adobe Illustrator campaign identity source showing Be Antibiotics Aware logo variations, clear space, color palette, and co-branded CDC usage.
Campaign identityIllustrator logo source
Adobe Illustrator workspace showing the reusable antibiotic resistance illustration and its vector sequence.
Resistance illustrationReusable vector narrative
Reusable Be Antibiotics Aware side-effect icon system showing consistent symptom illustrations, styles, and scalable sizes.
Side-effect icon setReusable symptom visuals
CDC partnership badge usage guide showing clear space, minimum size, and campaign attribution examples.
Agency attributionControlled identity asset

Final artwork

Two sides, six panels, one consistent communication system.

The finished brochure connects campaign identity, clinical guidance, photography, data, icons, and action messaging without making any one element compete with the whole.

Exterior side of the final CDC antibiotic stewardship tri-fold brochure.
Exterior spreadAwareness, patient actions, oral health, resources, and campaign branding.
Interior side of the final CDC antibiotic stewardship tri-fold brochure.
Interior spreadTreatment guidance, side effects, data, antibiotic resistance, and final takeaway.

Design value

The final piece turns a dense health topic into a structured, reusable, production-ready communication experience.

Clearer user journey

Panel roles and visual hierarchy give patients a predictable path from question to guidance to action.

Systemized visual language

Reusable tokens, components, and source assets make the design easier to maintain and extend consistently.

Production-ready execution

Layout discipline, linked-asset management, brand control, and preflight thinking support reliable print delivery.

Design perspective

For complex communications, strong visual design is also systems design: establish the rules, guide attention, and make the next asset easier to build consistently.

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