July 6, 2009 | Category: Logo Designing | Tags: Medical Logo Design

‘Health is wealth’ is an age-old adage. It means, more or less, when you have good health, take it for granted that you can have good wealth. However, different people interpret this adage in different ways: some say if you spoil your health for earning wealth, you lose both health and wealth; some others say it is good to have health rather than wealth; and yet some others say being health-conscious is better than being wealth-conscious. The origin of this adage may have been the result of the fact that sick people, however rich they might be, suffer from the sickness and need the help and support of others and cannot enjoy the wealth for which they may have neglected the human relationships and the compassion that is usually associated with it.

In fact, it is not that only rich people are often sick, physically or mentally; even people without a dime are sick to their graves, but there is always a loud talk about rich people being sick because they are always in the limelight and whatever happens to them is news to poor people. It is a fact that more than 50% of the population in the under-developed countries is below poverty line, and so, would you say that there is no ill-health in those countries because there is no wealth!? Just a thought! The WHO has been crying out loud that the health care infrastructure in those countries is terribly sick!

In this context, it is to be noted that “wealth or no wealth, there is ill-health! And the once simple activity of treating a person of sickness with rituals, religious logo design beliefs, superstitions and, in a more practical sense, with simple herbs and roots of plant life that were found locally, has, over the centuries, grown into a multi-national-trillion-dollar industry.
All this growth, needless to say, is not of the fact that the rich are more wealth-conscious than health-conscious!

History of health care:

The historians have proof of sick people being taken to the temples and laid by the side of the temple walls so that the gods, if willing, would come into their dreams and instruct them how to drive away the evil in them that had been bothering them. And religious societies of the past had simple clinics where the sick travelers were given a fair amount of solace and confidence and a considerable dose of whatever herbal medication was at hand. Those who got well as a result of either the amount of religious belief or the dose of medicine or even the rest and good food, walked away and those who could not sustain, were thrown away!

The origin of the first hospitals, as we know them now, may have been for the soldiers who were injured on the battle fields. The quick recovery and the morale of the soldiers on the battle fields were more important than anything else because if the soldiers were stricken down either by the lack of immediate treatment or by the lack of confidence, the battles were lost.

The battalions of several ancient empires, including the Roman Empire, were accompanied by medical corps. There are records to show that centres to house mentally sick people, ‘insane asylums’, were not uncommon in the ancient world. The first specialised hospitals were probably for lepers, mentally unstable and patients with contagious and infectious fevers because they were difficult to cure, and the knowledge that if those people were left to stay or move in the public places others would also be infected.

As more and more people have been educated and more and more innovations have been made in business technology, the medical science has made great strides in recent years. Of the several methods of medical logos – allopathy, homeopathy, ayurveda, and other alternative medicine – the allopathic method of treatment has become the most popular because the relief is quick and there is the ‘surgery’, the method of curing a disease by cutting open the part of the patient’s body to either remove the damaged part completely or set it right.

Every citizen in every country has a right to live, and to honor that right everybody must be given a chance to live by providing food, clothing, shelter and medical aid. Every government, irrespective of its political stance, has an obligation to provide medical aid, ‘health care’, to its people. The budget allocation for ‘health care’ in developing countries is approximately 5-7 % of its GDP, and in developed countries it is about 10 %, which if translated into market potential is billions of dollars and an enormous market for several businesses. It might seem a little rude to calculate people’s lives in terms of dollars and market potential, like ‘fishing in troubled waters’, but it is the truth, and if this medical sector is not looked at in this perspective, millions of lives will be in jeopardy.

As of today, the ‘health care logo design’ which includes the treatment and prevention of diseases, is an industry, just like the film industry, cotton industry, automobile industry, tourism industry, etc. Starting from educating and training the medical personnel – doctors, nurses, paramedics – to building hospitals, laboratories, research facilities, etc to manufacturing medicines, apparatus and equipment, everything needs planning and budget, and on a large scale. Every one of the 6 billion people all over the world needs medical aid in one form or the other. There used to be a time when certain age group people contracted only certain diseases, but these days, as a result of the ever-growing pollution and the changes in the people’s food habits, everybody is susceptible to any disease.

Once some activity falls under the category of an industry, it must have all the qualities of an industry, and the most important of all the qualities is the publicity. And once a product is put on show, it must have a brand name, a logo and a caption that entwine with one another to create a saga that in turn makes the product or service immemorial!

The medical science has had a standard of its own since ancient times: the Staff of Aesculapius – a snake coiled around a staff (long stick). Aesculapius was a Greek god of medicine, curing the sick with gentle physical touch and humane mental touch. The crude staff (stick) is supposed to represent strength and solidity, and the snake is supposed to symbolize the power to create new vigor and life. (This notion of ‘creating new life and vigour’ may have been derived from the snake’s ability to shed the old skin and become young and healthy again with its new shining skin.)

There is another standard which is less relevant but more common called Caduceus of Hermes: Hermes was the messenger god in Greek mythology and his staff (long stick) with two small wings at the top and two snakes entwining around the staff has also been used to represent medicine. (The modern use of this logo is believed to have been originated when it was worn by the US Army Medical Corps as their uniform collar badge in 1902, and has become popular since then.)

Though the Caduceus of Hermes logo has become more popular, some people, like Laxmi Vilas Ghimire, a fifth year medical student from Nepal, (2005) (vilas_laxmi@iom.edu.np), believe that the Staff of Aesculapius is more related to medicine than the Caduceus of Hermes. Nevertheless, some people, like Robert O’Connor, a senior student from Canada (2005), have an entirely different but more scientific than mythological story to tell in support of the Caduceus of Hermes being the most suitable sign for medicine!

Whatever be the origin of the logo (sign or standard) of medicine, this logo has been modified, refined and simplified and has been used by several publishers of medical books, pharmaceutical companies and institutions related to medical science.

The health care industry encompasses several other industries. The pharmaceutical division takes the biggest chunk; the medical colleges and universities which train doctors, nurses and the paramedics may be the second; the manufacturers of apparatus and equipment needed in hospitals, medial laboratories and research facilities, the third; and others follow: tourism which has a new division called ‘medical tourism or health care tourism’; health clubs – gyms, spas and other mild sports centres; transport department; security; insurance division looking after the health policy claims; law division to plead the health and injury claim cases; etc.

All these related departments need to advertise their products or services in order to keep them afloat in this vast ocean of health care market. And the competition is inevitably very high. What makes an enterprise’s product or service more prominent than the others’ is the way how that enterprise makes itself known to others. Most of the time people need medical aid when they are in pain and cannot spare a considerable time looking up the yellow pages or medical directories or keep browsing the Net for ever for a suitable place to get relief; therefore, a quick reference facility has the highest opportunity of making a good business.

There are numerous newspaper ads, TV ads and websites that represent one physician/surgeon or the other, one product or the other, one hospital or the other. A patient will be in a position to wade through all those sites and get to choose only you when you have an excellent publicity strategy and an appealing website. And the most important thing to be taken care of in the first place in this strategy is the choice of a designer who can make a remarkable design work – a pleasing logo and a website that is modest in its stance, yet convenient to use.

All most all of us, at one time or the other, fall for a particular ad just because it is pleasing, attractive or clear, and say to ourselves, “Yes, this looks good. I must remember to go for this one next time when I need.” And it is not unnatural to think like that because a business establishment which takes good care of its publicity must be a good one itself. No entrepreneur is too foolish to throw away good money on cheap publicity when he/she is not sure of the good quality of his/her product or service!

Most of the educated patients go through the advertisements when they need to use some ‘OTC’ drugs, i.e., ‘over the counter’ drugs which a patient can buy from a pharmacy without a prescription from any physician, such as medicine for headache, body ache, and some skin ointments, etc. These types of drugs are entirely dependent on the publicity they are given.

And a young couple expecting a baby would like to go to a clinic or hospital where they believe they and their baby will be taken good care of. Of course, most of the time, the information is passed on from one couple to another, but the bone of contention here is that one person’s budget and social standing may be different from the one next to him. So, most of the time, patients depend mostly on what information they can get in the newspapers, on TV and/or on the internet, especially for the treatment of those diseases that are not covered by either the ‘social security’ or the ‘health insurance’!

Medical or Health Care Tourism

The ‘corporate hospitals’ (the hospitals with high standards, highly qualified expert medical staff and sophisticated equipment, where patients pay for their treatment come under this category) charge heavily in order to maintain high standards. As we discussed earlier, sickness does not chose only people of wealth. The medical treatment in the corporate or private hospitals in the developed countries is so expensive that some people in the low-income group cannot afford it. So, they look for alternatives, and the ‘Medical or Health Care Tourism’ is a blessing in disguise for them.

Some countries, like India, for example, have the best medical facilities with the most efficient medical staff, which they offer to anybody who can afford them, and as a result of the differences in the ‘foreign exchange rates’, an American patient on a tourist visa to India can get the best treatment for a relatively moderate price! This Health Care Tourism depends mostly on the Internet for its publicity purpose, and, naturally, the more appealing one’s website, the more clicks one gets.

Therefore, when so much is at stake, it is always wise to have a classic logo, clear and easy to manage website in order to make one’s product or service the best of all. And at LOGO DESIGN WORKS you will have such a memorable experience that you like to continue the relationship at any cost – health-wise or wealth-wise! Check out these case studies of Personal Wellness, BugBrooke Pharmacy, Canada Health Check Logo etc.

Here are some samples of the Health Care logos: