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Health services and especially the areas related to hospitals Pediatrics are increasingly committed to human well-being, either through the search for more effective treatments, either through the promotion of an emotional balance of their patients, caregivers and professionals.

The search for greater humanization of services and hospital environments is evident in several projects and studies disseminated around the world (Beirão G., Costa H. (2018); Franqueira T., Gomes, G., & Gonçalves, S. (2012); Lee, S. (2011); Instituto Desiderata (2015); Park, JG (2009); Sherman-Bien, SA (2011); Ullán, AM, & Manzanera, P. (2009). Despite these projects, reality still shows us that most people continue to have little positive feelings when they think of a hospital. For an institution whose main objective is the conservation and restoration of health, a negative image or a feeling of discomfort, can be seen as factors of stress that do not contribute to the rapid recovery of patients. Although the value of stress reduction is difficult to quantify, empirical evidence shows that there are intangible factors that are important for the recovery and well-being of the patient (Lankston, e.o., 2010).

In 2016, Esad, College of Arts and Design of Matosinhos was contacted by the Pediatric Service of Pedro Hispano’s Hospital of Matosinhos in order to conceive new visual contents for the main corridor of the service and for one of the playing rooms, where children and young people, caregivers and educators, sometimes spend long hours of their days, during the breaks of the treatments, consultations or surgeries. The goal stated for this collaborative project was clear: to try to create a more welcoming and friendly environment, with points of interest for both users: patients (newborns to 18 years old), and caregivers, in order to help them forget, even if briefly, the less pleasant reasons for them being there. To help to create a positive memory of space and service has become one of the main challenges of this project.

The process started with a series of visits to the Hospital's Pediatrics Service and meetings with the various professionals and users. A record was made of the main needs and technical constraints were taken into account, namely, materials and products not authorized for hospital use. This was followed by a literature review on illustration and the influence of hospital decoration on the recovery of patients. Among a constant dialogue between the ESAD working group and Pediatric professionals, multiple solutions were also analyzed. Of the various possibilities pointed out, the fact that the hospital had already implemented several actions that orbit medical practice has been highlighted, and in which, for example, stories are told to help to demystify the fears of children with illness through play.

With the knowledge of this and other practices, it was decided to create a set of illustrations that, in some way, supported the already existing practice of storytelling, and provided moments of distraction and positive emotional experience for all the elements that inhabit the pediatric service. The richness of the chosen illustrations is exemplified by the fact that we can find in them different categories of combinations between text and illustration, using in this example the combinations proposed by Scott McCloud (McCloud, 1993, p. 153/155), like a redundant occurrence between text and image, additive combination, combination based on a self-sufficient text or interdependence of text and drawing. In this way, we can see the exciting dynamics that the reader can find in understanding these illustrations.

According to Mendonça, M. (2015), children's mental representation in relation to hospitals can be transformed into positive experiences, memories and feelings. The success of hospitalization and the therapeutic work of hospitalized children can be enhanced by the existence of multidisciplinary works teams - doctors, nurses, technicians and early childhood educators - by the presence of the family but also by the design of welcoming environments. Like nutrition, health, housing and education, playing is a basic need for children. Aware of the importance of communicating emotions and minimizing the impact of stress factors associated with the experience of the disease and hospitalization in the pediatric wards of hospitals, several recreational activities should be promoted.

An example of this effort to redesign the spaces and social rooms of sick children was the action promoted by Hospital Pedro Hispano and ESAD in a collaborative project that, through the exhibition of a set of illustrations, sought to create, in the pediatric ward, a playful and pedagogical moment for your patients.

The illustrations displayed in the corridor of the pediatric ward seek to be a significant resource in the recovery of these patients, working as an incentive to the dream, to the imagination, providing other forms of perception of the world. The illustrations allow children to enrich their imagination, develop their cognitive level, know their emotions and deal with their fears and anxieties (Bettelheihm, 1975 in Martins, 2016).

Participating in this project, ESAD sought to ensure the selection of a set of illustrations capable of promoting communication and dialogue between hospitalized children and adults. As a result, it was possible to verify that illustration is able to promote communication between children and adults and, as it stimulates fantasy and creativity, it becomes a powerful vehicle for distraction, able to fight fear and anxiety associated with the hospitalisation experience. The selection of images took into account Mergulhão's statement (in Ferreira, 2013) about how illustrations should be constituted as “an imaginary and pictorial universe that will be all the richer and more meaningful for the child the more it deviates from the stereotype and the conventionality laws.” The selected illustrations installed in the pediatric ward thus seek to offer something new, creative, surprising and not only reproduce stereotypes associated with fear, contributing to the development of their interpretive, communicative competence and to the emotional experiences and positive memories of the hospital space and service.