Wayfinding excellence at Cárdio Pulmonar Hospital: STUDIOMDA and Cosign’s I-Sign Fix create a seamless patient journey

Founded in 1977 by professors Sócrates Guanaes Gomes and João de Souza Pondé Neto, the Hospital Cárdio Pulmonar was built as a specialist center in cardiology and pulmonology. Its location in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil along with its internal growth enabled the hospital to grow into a high-complexity general hospital offering 24-hour emergency services, diagnostics, surgery, and inpatient care.

Some interesting facts about the Cárdio Pulmonar Hospital:

30.000 m² total built area
249 beds in total
- 99 private inpatient rooms
- 80 observation beds
- 49 emergency observation beds
- 39 semi-intensive units
- 30 intensive care beds

The hospital’s growth over the last decades, enabled the hospital to receive the Gold Seal from Joint Commission International (JCI) in 2017, validating its position as one of the top hospitals of Brazil.

Interior Design: A patient-first approach

For the opening of the hospital’s new building in 2019, the hospital knew that a patient-first approach was essential. Ease of navigation throughout the hospital became the main focus point when designing the hospital. To enable this, the creativity of our partner STUDIOMDA was assigned this project to help bring this vision to life.

To turn this vision into reality, wayfinding design expert STUDIOMDA used heavy contrasts by combining black texts on white backgrounds. This was done in combination with floor based colour coding. This combination enabled fast floor identification in combination with easy detailed readability. The floor based colour coding also enabled an initial ambience on each floor to build the rest of the floor design around.

Signage for clear and modern wayfinding

For the Hospital Cárdio Pulmonar project, Cosign’s flagship I-Sign Fix system was chosen for its sleek design and invisible mounting clips. The system uses 2–3 mm panels in PVC, acrylic, aluminium, ACM, and engraving materials.

The main reason for choosing this system its strong compatibility with aluminium panels. The choice for aluminium panels was made to provide the most sustainable solution possible for this particular wayfinding challenge. This material also made it very easy to make modern-looking, clear signage in all kinds of different colours. On most occasions, white and black colours were used on the signs, in combination with occasional colours attributed to the floor in question. This way, the addition of a singular type of frame, enabled a large variety of looks around the hospital, giving each floor their own personal identity.

Key takeaways of the project

Enhancing wayfinding: Helping patients and staff locate units like ICU, hemodynamics, etc. at a glance
Maintaining visual consistency: Mirroring the hospital’s identity through color-coded directional signage
Ensuring easy maintenance: Clip‑in panels simplify updates and deep-cleaning, critical for infection control in healthcare environments

Through STUDIOMDA’s design vision and Cosign’s I‑Sign Fix, Hospital Cárdio Pulmonar achieved an intelligent signage solution that balances aesthetic quality, operational efficiency, and top-tier hygiene standards.