This is a quiz to test your knowledge of cheese and/or type fonts. Created by Tony Gambone at mogrify.org in Richmond, Virginia, the quiz gives an unfair advantage to serious cheese lovers. However, if there is ever a quiz called “Chocolate or Font?”, some of us will leave you cheese lovers in the dust.
If the Pixar animated robot “Wall-E” was a doctor, this may be what he looks like. Designed by Modo, the maker of specialized carts for the healthcare industry, this unintimidating device goes by the name “Practitioner Cart ™HDX™.” What makes it such a wonder of design is that it houses 14 separate telemedical technology components from Polycom and more than 97 feet of cabling in a footprint that is smaller than an office chair.
Compact enough to fit in a doctor’s small exam room, the Practitioner allows doctors in rural or remote areas to consult with experts from urban research centers. Instead of just describing symptoms, off-site physicians can interact face-to-face with patients. Modo CEO Bob Marchant explains, “In addition to making the equipment responsive, we lowered the video image to a comfortable, conversational height, so the physician’s image and voice are at the level of a seated patient.”
Live digital video and high-speed satellite connections give the offsite doctor the ability to diagnose illnesses in real time, without requiring patients to travel. A high-resolution digital camera can provide close-ups of skin lesions; a digital stethoscope can take heart rate and blood pressure readings, and x-rays can be uploaded for immediate viewing. Modo design manager Goo Sung says that “Using the system is as easy as having a conversation. There is no start-up calibration. You simply turn it on and talk to your doctor. No one wants to wait when their health is at risk.”
Published by Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Discoveries focuses a spotlight on the cutting-edge research conducted at the institution. Graphically, the magazine was designed to communicate Cedars-Sinai’s bold, innovative and conceptual thinking.
Over the years corporate magazines (once called “house organs”) have had a home-grown feel that have separated them from “real” consumer publications sold at newsstands. In fact, if they weren’t given out free, most people would not pay to get a copy. What do top-selling magazines do that inhouse publications often don’t? We asked Pentagram’s Kit Hinrichs, @Issue co-founder/design director, and designer of several mainstream magazines, including United Airlines’ Hemispheres, Coastal Living, Exhibitor, and Red Herring as well as publications for countless corporations, museums, cruise lines and institutions, including Cedars-Sinai Medical Center’s Discoveries magazine, shown here.
Microsoft is taking the fight back to Apple with a series of commercials, by Crispin Porter & Bogusky, that spoof the Apple ads that spoofed it. The Apple ads, by TBWA/Chiat/Day, feature comedian John Hodgman portraying the sincere but dull office “everyman” extolling the PC while his tech-savvy, youthful friend, “Mac,” played by actor Justin Long, comments good-naturedly. Instead of ignoring the Mac ads and changing the subject, Microsoft found a Hodgman lookalike right in its own office – a program engineer named Sean Siler – and had him protest that Apple has reduced him to a stodgy stereotype in spots titled “I’m a PC”. The witty response, free of the usual corporate-cliche slogans, makes Microsoft seem surprisingly cool. To see one of the Mac ads that started it all, click to the next page.
From Almap BBDO in Sao Paolo, Brazil, comes these outdoor poster advertisements for Bayer Aspirin. The inspiration of Almap chief creative director Marcello Serpa, art director Marcos Medeiros and illustrator Jose Cortizo Junior, these lushly drawn “Sanskrit” paintings feature a silhouetted man and woman in the traditional meditative lotus pose, with an aspirin used in place of a mystical “third eye” of calm. Outside the inner circle of serenity are vignette scenes of stress – warring kids pulling apart a teddy bear, a teenager banging on his drum set, a dentist by his empty chair, a worker using a jackhammer, a man rubbing his aching neck. The ad won the 2009 Cannes Lion Bronze for Outdoor advertising. Ohm shanti ohm. May you find peace in a chaotic world.