Jack is currently a human nursing student. He is a qualified firefighter and paramedic and has worked for five years in a trauma and pediatric emergency department in America.
Meet Jack:
I am the director of Bandage Art. We design decorative patches out of self-adhesive bandage wrap that is applied to splints and casts. We also make custom designs for clinics requesting their logos printed on the product.
Inspired by seeing first-hand how creativity and art can benefit the healing process and tone down the seriousness of medical emergencies, we started a company that designs artwork bandages.
From my experience in paediatrics and my close work with the veterinary community, I have come to understand that healing is very much a mindset. A tiny spark of joy in the eyes of a patient or their family can go a long way in the healing process.
Splints and casts can be scary and usually unexpected. So covering them with artwork can turn what may be traumatic into something playful and fun. This simple gesture can often lighten the tone.
By taking an item with one utilitarian purpose and turning it into art helps improve the user experience. Though Bandage Art has roots in emergency pediatric medicine, we find our most creative and dedicated artists work in the veterinary field.
Bandage Art started with a need to entertain children in a fast-paced emergency department. I had an abundance of medical supplies but a lack of toys. I started designing three-dimensional figures of popular children’s characters made out of vet wrap.
These would take me 8-10 hours to make. I would work on them in my spare time to hand them out to my patients. The figures were so popular that I created an IG account, Cobanimals, to share and auction the vet wrap figures for charities.
It was on IG that I got introduced to the bandage art practices of the veterinary field. I, therefore, decided to make another account dedicated to sharing everyone’s bandage art.
The bandage art in the veterinary community was not lacking in creativity, but there was no organization to it yet. That’s the small part that I contribute. We create art for clinics that don’t have the time to design and legitimize the practice for everyone who participates.
We cover every being that may need a bandage: dogs, cats, horses, chickens or children. Our artwork has even made it onto the limbs of lions and pumas!
I wanted to build a community around bandage art and help legitimize it as a practice in the human and veterinary fields. After curating and building up the IG page, I was asked to manufacture my artwork for various clinics.
That’s where I transitioned from the vet wrap figures to the vet wrap patches. The growth in demand has been incredible, and we have done our best to expand production to keep up. In about a year, we went from making a few dozen patches a month to a few thousand.
Today we make all different kinds of bandage art: mini patches, custom design patches and cast patches with adhesive backings. We can produce as little as five small patches per order up to a thousand. We use biodegradable packaging when shipping from our HQ in California. And we offer worldwide delivery.
It has been great to send our artwork all over the world and see our customers value our designs. But most of all, it’s been an incredible experience growing a business that has such a positive impact on two fields of health.
If you would like to learn more, please check out our website and join the bandage art community on IG.
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