Graphical Hospital

By Duane

UA grad creates the new look of Nationwide Children’s Hospital

Clair

UPPER ARLINGTON HIGH School

graduate Wes Kull has been living in New York City for nine years, but he’s leaving a permanent mark in central Ohio.

Kull is the lead graphic designer for the new wing of Nationwide Children’s Hospital that will officially open in June.

For a long time, Kull thought his future would be spent playing sports, but by the time he was a senior playing outfield on the Upper Arlington High School baseball team, he realized his interest in them had waned.

“I realized sports are not my calling,” Kull says. He found he greatly enjoyed art, particularly graphic art, while he was taking high school art classes. He taught himself Adobe Photoshop while pursuing a new hobby. His parents, Mike and Suzanne Kull, were astonished.

“I’m an only child and they don’t know where I get it,” Kull says of his ability and interest in art.

During his senior year of high school, Kull split his days between UA and the art school at Columbus City Schools’ Ft. Hayes Career Center, learning the basics of his newfound love for computer graphics. He altered Super Bowl logos, cars and musical instruments and designed a CD cover and label for a friend’s band.

By the time he graduated in 2003, Kull had amassed a portfolio of work and was accepted at Pratt Institute, a highly regarded art school in Brooklyn, N.Y. Soon Kull was offered an internship at Ralph Applebaum Associates Inc., which bills itself as the largest interpretive museum design firm in the world.

Once he’d earned a bachelor of fine arts degree, Kull was hired full-time by RAA to work on a wide range of projects for the company.

He works with a team, and in his time as part of that team, it has produced an artistic wall-mounted world press freedom map in the Newseum in Washington, D.C.; displays entitled Pompeii: Life and Death in the Shadow of Vesuvius and Dead Sea Scrolls: Life and Faith in Biblical Times in Discovery, a Times Square museum; a display about John Lennon at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in New York; and an artfully designed tour book of the Los Angeles State Historical Park.

Kull’s hand is all over the environmental graphics and displays in the new Nationwide Children’s Hospital wing. Two floors of the new building were opened quietly in January, months ahead of the planned completion in June, when Nationwide Children’s will become the second-largest children’s hospital in the U.S.

Kull and two others on his team, led by an art director, have created graph- ics that fit an overall theme for the interior –both functional and whimsical. The whole building involved “a big team of people,” Kull says.

Left: One of the 460 private patient rooms in the new hospital. At 300 square feet each, the rooms are double the size of rooms in the original building.

Center: Throughout the Atrium, children will discover larger-than-life animals handcrafted by carousel carvers from Mansfield, Ohio.

Right: Kull used coordinating colors in his “way finding” designs to help direct visitors to their destinations.

As soon as the four-year project came in the door at Applebaum, Kull volunteered for it. In addition to the invaluable experience of creating a look for a children’s hospital, he knew it would give him a chance to see his family and friends more often than once or twice a year.

Overall, the idea of the design is to make Children’s less like a traditional hos- pital – without interfering with the work that the staff and physicians have to do. Interior design, Kull says, can be distracting if it’s too colorful or if it doesn’t create a comfortable atmosphere.

His main role was wall graphics, including “way finding” – the use of colors and artwork to direct visitors to their destinations. The pastel color-coded wall designs and paths on each floor add to the brightness created by large windows in halls and reception areas.

Part of Kull’s effort included incorporating 18 large wooden animals – including rabbits, frogs and owls made by Carousel Works in Mansfield – into the plan. The creatures add a feeling of friendliness and comfort for patients and families. Additional animals and nature scenes are displayed in dioramas in niches along hallways where young patients can see and enjoy them. All these efforts – including several large green fiberglass trees – contribute to bringing the outdoors inside.

But if there’s any departure from traditional hospital décor, health codes must be considered. Aquariums, for example, “are a kind of tricky thing” so there’s only one in the emergency room and none in other areas, Kull says. “Hospitals have to be hospitals.”

And Kull hasn’t given up on sports –at least as an outlet for his artistic bent. He has two websites, one a compilation of all his projects and awards over the years, wes-kull.com. Another is gridironleague.com, which Kull describes as “a work in progress,” where he has posted his version of logos for all the National Football League teams.

The next step in Kull’s career will be coming home for opening ceremonies at Nationwide Children’s Hospital to see in person the work that more than 1 million patients a year will appreciate for many years to come.

Duane St. Clair is a contributing editor. Feedback welcome at laurand@pubgroupltd.com.

By Carly Kohake