Sutnar Faculty creates books for hospitalised children

Students from the Ladislav Sutnar Faculty of Design and Art made spatial leporellas with interactive elements for children at the University Hospital in Pilsen. Hospital representatives visited the faculty in February. A presentation to pediatric patients will follow.

Illustrated spatial leporellas with interactive elements were created as semester projects by students of the Book Design and Paper Shaping Studio under the supervision of the studio head Petra Soukupová and the assistant of the Comics and Illustration for Children Studio, Eva Hudečková. The resulting works are part of the Pop-Up Hospital project, which aims to 'combine the beautiful with the useful' and bring quality book design to places where it can be an encouragement, such as children's clinics.

In February, representatives from the Pilsen University Hospital - Ludmila Romová, a play specialist, Romana Sedláčková, the head nurse of the Children's Clinic, and Jan Beneš, the head of the Department of Anaesthesiology, Resuscitation and Intensive Care Medicine - came to the faculty to see the leporellas. The books have the potential to become a valuable part of the treatment process.

"We welcome any support for our patients. The Pop-Up Hospital project is very interesting, it brings interactive, creative stories, fairy tales that work with emotions, all with the aim of engaging paediatric patients to come up with different ideas in the hospital. I am very happy for this great idea and look forward to seeing how the cooperation will continue," says Václav Šimánek, Director of the University Hospital Pilsen.

However, the Pop-Up Hospital project is in its early stages. Further presentations of these specially designed books are planned, this time directly to children in hospital beds. The project leaders hope that their work will help to make hospital stays more enjoyable for many children, while encouraging their interest in reading and learning new things, even in difficult times.