These images show how it’s been trying to do exactly that for nearly 200 years.
Smoking is Slow Motion Suicide poster, 1972, Biman Mullick, Cleanair.
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In 1972, Indian designer and educator Biman Mullick founded the anti-smoking organisation Cleanair, and has been designing materials for this campaign ever since.
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Relatively cheap to produce and widely distributed, stamps such as this one from Cyprus (1995) have often been used to raise awareness of public health concerns.
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Peter Grundy is considered to be a pioneer of infographics. ‘Infographics: Human Body’ (2014) is his first children’s book.
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Designed by Gillian Crampton Smith and Sarah Curtis and published by the Family Planning Association, these comics were a response to increases in teenage pregnancy in the 1970s.
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Illustrator Dick Bruna was best known for creating Miffy, however he also donated his design services to charities such as the Haemophilia Society and the Red Cross.
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Aspirin was first trademarked in 1899, having been discovered by a Bayer scientist. The tablets were stamped with the circular Bayer logo from 1910.
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Swiss pharmaceutical company J R Geigy AG was renowned for its ground-breaking graphic design, which made Geigy products such as this sedative seem modern and memorable, rather than technical or scientific.
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Known as ‘Indian cholera’ after the 1817 outbreak in Bengal, the first epidemic arrived in London in 1831. Broadsheets such as this warned the public.
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Condom packaging, such as this for Liquid Latex (1933) is a barometer of changing attitudes towards sex.
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The fading logo of Alzheimer Nederland in this 2012 poster reflects the vanishing world of people with dementia.
About the contributors
Helen Babbs
Helen is a Digital Editor for Wellcome Collection.