concept & strategy – Kaiser Permanente
Nurses week
As recurring brief to celebrate some of our most essential employees during this annual week of national recognition, it’s one of the most meaningful projects I work on. The creative challenge changes every year because the context does too, but the goal is always the same: find a way to make that recognition resonate.
ROLE
Visual concept development, animation, some production design
AUDIENCE
Kaiser Permanente nurses and colleagues
DELIVERABLES
Visual concept, and for yearly theme,
2021 — an impossible brief
In 2021, nurses weren't just working — they were carrying the weight of a pandemic that had redefined what it meant to show up every day. The recognition campaign needed to match that gravity.
The concept was simple and radical at the same time: make every nurse feel individually seen, while capturing the power of what they were doing collectively.
facility banners
26000+ names
That idea took two forms. A print banner listed every single nurse's name — not a stock photo, not a tagline, just names filling the frame. A reminder that behind every shift was a real person. I did the final production design in addition to the concept.
Animated video
The same idea moved into motion through a video where each nurse became a dot — abstract and individual, but part of something larger. As the dots gathered and moved together, the video recognized the collective contribution during an impossible time. I did the animation for this video, using expressions to create organic-feeling motion, automatically generate color variety, and as a time-saver to not individually animated each dot.
2026 — an empowered moment
This year's theme arrived at a different moment. Nurses weren't just surviving — many KP hospitals were on the path to Magnet recognition, a distinction that reflects what the nursing profession has always known about itself. The campaign needed to rise to meet that energy.
Three of my directions were developed and presented, in addition to those of 2 other designers.
This year we were also tasked with developing a broader visual system that could extend to other nursing recognition events, including Certified Nurses Day.
Joyful and celebratory
The first repurposed a bold, empowering, and celebratory direction from another project — the Aging Well Summit — one we loved but that ultimately wasn't chosen. This year's Nurses Week theme felt like it could be the right home it. Candid portraits shot against a studio backdrop and paired with graphic type brought the subjects forward and humanized them beyond just their role as nurses within the organization.
centering nurses in action
The second was the chosen direction. Emotionally honest and impactful moments between nurses and patients, or nurses with each other — cropped in close. The word "This" pulled you directly into the photograph, with "is the power of nursing" completing the thought below. A show-don't-tell approach showcasing the power of nursing in practice.
nurses in action — Grid
The third was a variation on the same idea — a brick-like grid of multiple photographs, letting the images collectively carry the tagline, emphasizing the diversity of nursing as a discipline.
