Samuel Firkaly
Digestive Health
With these infographics, my desire is to inform the general public of the importance of digestion with respect to the stomach, or enteric, nervous system; a healthy gut biome; and how diet and lifestyle can impact physical and mental quality of life. I would like my viewers to understand this topic with a rudimentary understanding of digestion health to allow my work to impact people who do not have a biology background. I chose to work with a vector-based, simplified and flat illustration aesthetic to make it easier to comprehend, especially at a quick glance.
Inspiration for this work comes from my personal struggles with health and diet. My information is collected from online, respected sources such as universities, clinical professionals, and articles from journals. I organized the topics into four posters consisting of the enteric nervous system and its function in digestion, gut microbiota, and diet and lifestyle effects. Each of the four demonstrate specific aspects of digestion, that can help or hurt, along with its influence on mental and physical health. I hope my designs will inspire others to make changes for the better. Overall, I designed these graphics in a utilitarian fashion to enhance understandability and education rather than tending to capitalistic, profit-making endeavors.
I have consulted experts in both the medical illustration and biology fields who reviewed my infographics to ensure the accuracy of information conveyed. While creating these designs, I learned the importance of using certain colors for scientific accuracy, such as nerves being yellow, stomach digestive juices being clear or yellow-like, and food colors like leafy greens for chyme, a mixture of digestive juices and food, found in the stomach. I also learned the importance of digestive health on quality of life; the information I want to convey to you; and that more research needs to be done on these topics, especially the enteric nervous system and compromised gut linings.
