tomoko@maykawa.com

We are ..............................

  • Makers
  • Thinkers
  • Innovators
  • Explainers
  • Educators
  • Strategists
  • Advisors
  • Communicators

who are ...............

  • curious
  • considerate
  • informed
  • imaginative
  • practical
  • evolving

Projects

Diagram: A Dynamic Relationship — Achieving Health Equity and Systems Transformation through Meaningful Community Engagement
Assessing Community Engagement (ACE) Conceptual Model
No existing framework measured the impact of community engagement while treating health equity as central, not incidental.
Pages from the Overview Handout guiding families through the pediatric wheelchair process
Pediatric Wheelchair Guidance Supports Caregivers
Caregivers face a fragmented, multi-year process to secure a pediatric wheelchair, with no single resource to guide them through it.
CAPABLE national ecosystem map tracing funding and information flows
Expanding and Sustaining the CAPABLE Aging in Place Program
A proven aging-in-place program struggled to move from successful local pilots to sustained, national scale.
Pages from the 2026 GINA Severe Asthma Guide
2026 GINA Severe Asthma Guide
Clinicians treating one of the world’s most common chronic lung diseases need a concise, current reference for difficult-to-treat asthma.
Image 5
Cost-of-Care Conversations During Prenatal Care
Low-income pregnant patients often defer care over cost, but little research existed on how to raise cost openly during time-limited prenatal visits.
Spreads from the Centering Our Values workbook
Centering Our Values
Dementia-care materials rarely reflected the culture and values of African American caregivers and patients.
Opened discussion guide using graphic-novel storytelling for radiation treatment
Communicating the External Beam Radiation Experience (CEBRE)
Patients facing radiation therapy were handed dense, 12th-grade-level materials at the most stressful moment of their treatment.

About

In a world of complex topics, my design approach is to use fundamental visual communication principles applied to user-focused representations. Rather than style-driven, this content- and context-driven design seeks clarity and visual simplicity without dumbing down the content, presenting the information in a usable manner. This can range in types of representation, from graphic narratives to diagramming.

Tomoko Ichikawa

With 30+ years in academia and 20+ in professional practice, I bring a thoughtful and informed experience in design analysis and user understanding to visual communication solutions. When appropriate, a systems-level lens is applied to create visual models/diagrams that can be used to help think, clarify ideas, align viewpoints, and present abstract concepts.

Here is my CV.