---
title: the ibuproject
date: 2025-08-13T18:27:00+02:00
author: admin
canonical_url: "https://tuqtuli.com/the-ibuproject"
section: Einträge
---
# the ibuproject

   ## The ibuproject is an informal international, interdisciplinary cooperation. It seeks to develop tuqtuli instructions for a simple painkiller, Ibuprofen. 

Ibuprofen is sold all over the world. But many people can’t read the package leaflet: illiterates, people who have difficulty reading or do not understand the language spoken around them.

The ibuproject is meant to be a pilot. We envision pictographic communication to become natural in the context of medicine instruction.

## the core team

We, that is [Karel](https://graphicdesign-research.com/about.html) (Belgium), [Mandar](https://mrane.com/) (India), and [Juli](https://tuqtuli.com/who-initiated-tuqtuli) (Germany).

Dr. Karel van der Waarde is a Dutch national, living in Brussels, Belgium. He is a design and research consultant mainly in the medical-pharmaceutical sector. He teaches Visual Communication at the Swinburne University of Technology, Melbourne, Australia, the Basel School of Design, Switzerland and at the Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts, Switzerland.

Prof. Mandar Rane teaches Communication Design at the Industrial Design Centre of the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay in Powai, Mumbai, India. His focus includes information design, semantics and communication theory. Both himself and together with students he already worked in the medical field.

## *background* 

Karel, Mandar, and Juli know each other as co-members of the international [Symbol Group](https://www.symbol-group.org/profiles).

In one of Juli’s tuqtuli workshops, one of her students, Eric, visually translated the basic instructions for a painkiller, Ibubeta (see below). Shortly after Juli sent Eric’s sketches to Karel and Mandar who work in the field of medicine and signs. Mandar immediately retranslated the visual messages back into language with one of his students. It turned out that they understood a remarkable 75 percent right. That was the spark that made Juli take the idea seriously.

## *ibuprofen*

Ibuprofen is being sold in many versions worldwide, like Ibubeta in Germany, but always has the same ingredients. It seems ideal for this international, interdisciplinary cooperation.

## objectives 

We seek to translate the essence of endless written instructions into signs. As far as we know nobody tackled this before.

In March, at the monthly meetings of [Pharmacists for Future](https://pharmacistsforfuture.org/), Juli presented the ibuproject for the first time. Watch the talk [here](https://youtu.be/_eUffcTAB-Q) (in German). In May in Vienna, Austria, it was part of [The Symbol Group conference](https://www.visionplus.iiid.net/symbol26conference) about »examining inclusivity, diversity and universality in visual languages«. Watch the talk [here](https://youtu.be/ivGZEZzq0gQ?t=4043). In June it was guest in Kathrin Kunze’s MedTalk podcast. Watch the whole conversation [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I2pRBt7Xsdw) on YouTube.

In September, ibuteam and milulayu project member Tobias Gantner interviewed Juli in the [Bundesverband der Pharmazeutischen Industrie](https://www.bpi.de/startseite) (BPI) (German Pharmaceutical Industry Association)‘s podcast around health care, »Mehr Einsatz wagen«. They speak about chances and adventures of using signs in health communication, and you can watch their (english) conversation [here](https://youtu.be/I8vEMEVH_ug?si=d6tcDHH2QJx9zGSM).

Papers about the process, the results and insights will later be published in medicine and design journals. Currently, ibuproject team member [Alicia Link](https://alicialink.de/) and Juli are working on a book editionwith which we aim to reach a broader, non professional audience. You will can order it [here](https://tuqtuli.com/the-ibuproject-documentation).

We look forward to interviews in podcasts, newspapers and magazines. After all, pictographic instructions are also conceivable in other contexts: for preparing meals, for house rules, on parking tickets and much more.

Ibuprojekt team members [Alicia Link](https://alicialink.de/) and [Juli Gudehus](https://tuqtuli.com/who-initiated-tuqtuli) have now produced a documentation which Alicia has designed very attractively. It currently covers Phases 0 and 1. You can order it [here](https://tuqtuli.com/the-ibuproject-documentation).

## phase 1

Phase 1 is now completed. Here, the focus was on image concepts. You can see the first sketchy approaches [here](https://tuqtuli.com/downloads/Ibuproject_submissions_phase_I.pdf) (the PDF is very large and may take a moment to load).

[Alessandra Vierucci](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandra-v-287574329/) (design management student), [Alicia Link](https://alicialink.de/) (communication designer), [Anna Bondarchuk](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-bondarchuk-329511399?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app) (design management student), [Ariel Martín Pérez](https://tainome.com/) (art director, type director), the [KomunIKON](https://www.komunikon.com) collective, [Divya Gagnani](https://www.linkedin.com/in/divya-gagnani/) (product designer, visual designer), Dominic Müller (communication design student), Holger Ziemann (professor of media design), [Hung-min Krämer](https://www.instagram.com/hmkraemer/) (architect, poet), [Liz Heßling](https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-he%C3%9Fling-7b0046410/) (communication design student), [Mark Gibson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-gibson-a994374/?originalSubdomain=uk) (linguist, researcher) and [Nigel Holmes](http://www.nigelholmes.com/) (designer) have done pioneering work in the field of tuqtuli translation of medical instructions.

So we were a start team of 17, originally from / living in England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Morocco, Netherlands, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine and the USA, born between 1942 and 2004. In

## phase 2

we work in small groups in order to optimize the submissions we have. We boil down redundancies and will come up with up to 8 new results that will be tested worldwide in phase 3. We keep using pen (and paper). Aesthetics and style(s) will be part of our work much later when the visual ideas and the pictogrammar have reached a satisfying stadium.

[Aanchal Mehrotra](https://www.linkedin.com/in/aanchal-mehrotra-37231730b/) (graphic design student), [Alessandra Vierucci](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandra-v-287574329/) (design management student), [Alicia Link](https://alicialink.de/) (communication designer), [Anna Bondarchuk](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-bondarchuk-329511399?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app) (design management student), [Ariel Martín Pérez](https://tainome.com/) (art director, type director), [Divya Gagnani](https://www.linkedin.com/in/divya-gagnani/) (product designer, visual designer), [Holger Ziemann](https://www.linkedin.com/in/holgerziemann/) (professor of media design), [Juli Gudehus](https://tuqtuli.com/who-initiated-tuqtuli) (artist), [Karel van der Waarde](https://graphicdesign-research.com/about.html) (design researcher), [Kathrin Kunze](https://www.linkedin.com/in/kathrins-medical-linguistics/) (medical communicator), [Liz Heßling](https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-he%C3%9Fling-7b0046410/) (communication design student), [Mandar Rane](https://mrane.com/) (communication designer), [Mark Gibson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-gibson-a994374/?originalSubdomain=uk) (linguist, researcher), [Muna Khalil](https://www.linkedin.com/in/munakhalil/) (pharmacist), [Mzee Yusuf Gawany](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-mzee-gawany-b5a361230/) (Ophtalmologist), and [Nigel Holmes](http://www.nigelholmes.com/) (designer) form the team of this phase.

We originally come from / live in England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, Ukraine and the USA, and are born between 1942 and 2003.

Independently of this, Adam Yeo, assistant professor of graphic design, and lecturer-researcher at the [University of Bondoukou](https://www.ubkou.edu.ci/), Côte d’Ivoire, also had his students translate the medical instructions for ibuprofen into tuqtuli – and so did [Loïc Marleix](https://design-brouhaha.com/) with his students at [Strate](https://www.strate.design/en) École de Design and [ESD](https://ecole-du-digital.com) École Supérieure du Digital in Lyon, France. Their work will be integrated into ours in phase 4. In

## phase 3

we are now going to test four optimized versions. [Aanchal Mehrotra](https://www.linkedin.com/in/aanchal-mehrotra-37231730b/) (graphic design student), [Alessandra Vierucci](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alessandra-v-287574329/) (design management student), [Alicia Link](https://alicialink.de/) (communication designer), [Anna Bondarchuk](https://www.linkedin.com/in/anna-bondarchuk-329511399?utm_source=share&utm_campaign=share_via&utm_content=profile&utm_medium=ios_app) (design management student), [Ariel Martín Pérez](https://tainome.com/) (art director, type director), [Jia Li](https://www.linkedin.com/in/jia-li-design/?skipRedirect=true) (interaction design student), [Juli Gudehus](https://tuqtuli.com/who-initiated-tuqtuli) (artist), [Karel van der Waarde](https://graphicdesign-research.com/about.html) (design researcher), [Liz Heßling](https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-he%C3%9Fling-7b0046410/) (communication design student), [Mandar Rane](https://mrane.com/) (communication designer), [Mark Gibson](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mark-gibson-a994374/?originalSubdomain=uk) (linguist, researcher), [Muna Khalil](https://www.linkedin.com/in/munakhalil/) (pharmacist), [Mzee Yusuf Gawany](https://www.linkedin.com/in/dr-mzee-gawany-b5a361230/) (ophtalmologist), and [Nigel Holmes](http://www.nigelholmes.com/) (designer) form the team of this phase.

We originally come from / live in China, England, France, Germany, India, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Syria, Tanzania, Ukraine and the USA, and are born between 1942 and 2006.

During one of the German speaking »Leichte Bilder« (plain images) working group’s bi-monthly meetings in early October, we had the opportunity – quite apart from our upcoming tests – to have two people with learning disabilities test one of the sentences in one of four translation variants. This was exciting in several respects. »Leichte Bilder« co-organiser [Insa Krey](https://klakadu.de/) helped them to put into words what they saw and understood. Although both only grasped parts of the intended message, they generally liked the idea. This was also the case for others present who work in the fields of plain language, visual communication and or accessibility. One of the two testers suggested that tuqtuli communication could also be used in other contexts. Yes, of course! [Hanna Köhler](https://tuqtuli.com/de/hannakoehler.de), co-organiser of »Leichte Bilder«, wrapped up the intensely focused hour and a half by saying that today had shown that whilst there are great difficulties, there is also great courages and great visions.