NHS Lanarkshire

The Pulse Magazine

Digital Design | Print Design

The Background

NHS Lanarkshire, the third largest health board in Scotland and one of many health boards that make up the larger NHS Scotland, pride themselves on delivering high quality, innovative health and social care to a population of 655,000 people across rural and urban communities in Lanarkshire.

To share the latest news and achievements of their staff, they wanted to create a bespoke bi-monthly magazine that would be available to all staff members in addition to members of the public. With our expertise in elegant print brochures and our strong working relationships with printers within the creative industry, SNS Group were tasked with creating the Pulse magazine.

We have been working on constantly updating the design of each issue of The Pulse since 2015, with the overall style being completely refreshed at the tail end of 2018.

The Approach

We took control of the project from start to finish, setting up the overall style of the magazine with an attractive original design and imaginative layouts showing off each story and the photographs that accompany them to their full potential. We fine-tuned the wording with our talented in-house copywriters and organised the printing of the high-quality final product. For 4 years, we have continuously met the needs and requirements of the NHS staff who have often praised our work.

The refreshed style continued to use the traditional medical colours already in place whilst also utilising the light blue and teal colours more prominently to help create a modern and clean appearance. The dark blue (which was the lead colour in the original style) was demoted to a secondary colour and is now used more sparingly as part of the new stylish design.

NHS Lanarkshire requested that the new style included more visual elements and our solution was to incorporate some clever infographics to bring a few of the written elements to life. This suggestion was positively received, and the NHS tailored their content (where appropriate) to include sections that we could visualise in such a way.

The Results

Once completed, each issue of The Pulse is printed and distributed to various NHS health centres in Lanarkshire for staff members and the general public to read. It is also shared digitally in PDF form on NHS Lanarkshire’s Pulse website where each issue receives hundreds of reads online.

Over the years, The Pulse has helped raise awareness of certain NHS campaigns such as dispelling the myths of breastfeeding or helping people to quit smoking. It has also kept staff and the public informed on current events within the health board such as staff award nights and of the selfless acts of many kind hearted nurses and doctors.

The Pulse has a reach of 12,000 staff, plus it is distributed to all GP practices and health centres in the Lanarkshire area which has a population of approx. 650,000.