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Antibiotics kill bacteria – or stop them from growing – helping to treat a wide range of infections in both humans and animals. However, bacteria are constantly mutating, which leads to rising levels of antibiotic resistance and the growing risk of antibiotics failing as a key form of infection control.
The Antibiotic Policy Group (APG) at City St George’s University of London is a World Health Organisation Collaborating Centre that leads research into the optimal use of antibiotics. Their work examines how antibiotics are currently used and helps shape future clinical practices and global policy.
Yet, many of the audiences they aim to reach – particularly in lower-resource settings – have limited internet access and prefer clear, visually-led communication over dense academic materials.
To support this, we ran co-design workshops with the team and reviewed the WHO’s existing antimicrobial stewardship framework: AWaRe (Access, Watch, Reserve). While it is a globally recognised system for categorising antibiotics, its current visual presentation poses challenges – especially due to its reliance on coloured text and inconsistently sized arrows and symbols that can confuse rather than clarify its message.
We proposed a new visual identity based on a simplified traffic-light system. This logotype combines cylindrical and circular pill shapes to create an instantly recognisable communication tool.
This concept became the foundation for a full identity design. From it, we developed:
The website includes accessible introductions to the AWaRe system for:
It also acts as a directory of the team’s ongoing research, including work on prescribing practices, policy development and interventions in hospitals and primary care.
While the website offers a much-needed digital home for APG’s work, the broader mission – to prevent antibiotic failure on a global scale – remains an urgent challenge. Meeting it will require not just new systems of monitoring and control, but also bold, imaginative ways of communicating the challenge to diverse audiences.
The website is currently being developed and will be launched by the end of September 2025.
If you're working in health, science or environmental research and want to bring your knowledge to life through better design and communication, we’d love to hear from you.
