Project News

The process of making symbol mark

In Vietnam, there are people who are unable to read and write the official Vietnamese language, such as ethnic minority people having their own language, or the poor, remote and mountainous areas people being unable to obtain appropriate education level.

In order to let anybody regardless of literacy status to recognize the image of Maternal and Child health handbook (MCH handbook), the Project for Implementing Maternal and Child Health Handbook for Scaling Up Nationwide planned to design a symbol mark of MCH handbook.

The expected roles of MCH handbook are 1) to support pregnant women, mothers and families with continuous health care from pregnancy until the child growing up to 6- year old, 2) to keep having good cooperation among pregnant women, mothers and fathers, family members, village health worker and health providers, and 3) to make family happy by promoting safe motherhood from pregnancy, childbirth, postpartum, newborn care and child health, and ensuring health status of women and children. From the above expectation from MCH handbook, the keywords for symbol mark of MCH handbook are Reliability, Protection, Family and Happiness.

Initially, six symbol marks that visualizing the four keywords were made by a professional designer. Then, three among them were selected by the Maternal and Child Health Department (MCH Dept.) of the Ministry of Health (MOH) and JICA project team. Finally, the Departments of Health in 4 project provinces including Dien Bien, Hoa Binh, Thanh Hoa and An Giang and in 2 non-projects where the MCH handbook was already implemented for long time including Ben Tre and Ha Giang were asked to select one symbol mark that they like the most. As the result, almost all six provinces favoured one same symbol mark as their preference.

MCH handbook - the symbol mark

This is the symbol mark of MCH handbook

This symbol mark shows us a book and smile. The smile means happiness.

Other designs were abstract images, however the simplest and easiest to understand one was chosen, at last.

In future, this symbol mark will be displayed in all project documents relating to MCH handbook such as MCH handbook, guideline, poster and leaflet, etc. Hopefully, this symbol mark will give the MCH handbook a visually impressive and recognizable identity.