May 31st, 2007 by misvan
It’s about that time again to give credit to those creative people working tirelessly to create advertising and marketing campaigns for the healthcare industry. Seeing as the top 13 drug companies (Johnson & Johnson, GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, etc.) spent nearly $13.8 billion in 2005 marketing prescription and OTC remedies, there had better be some amazing and clever ads created with at least a portion of that money.
The annual RX Club Awards is considered to be the Oscars of pharmaceutical product advertising and promotion. It honors work in print, electronic media, and video in the service of healthcare. The RX club “provides an independent forum for the worldwide healthcare advertising community to exchange ideas, showcase their best creative projects, and bring forth innovative ideas in the expanding healthcare market place, keeping the industry on the cutting edge.” The deadline for the competition this year is August 9th.
Whether you’re for pharmaceutical advertising or against it, you should still to give credit to or at least acknowledge the creative effort placed behind each pharmaceutical advertising campaign. And for those of you interested in pursuing medical illustration/animation, the pharmaceutical companies will always be among the top paying clients.
Here are a few of the winners of the 2006 RX Show. You can view the entire gallery here. Hover over the images to see the agency and client.
March 15th, 2007 by misvan
I recently mentioned in an earlier post that the Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge is off and running. I’m highly anticipating this year’s winners. Each year we advance so much in imaging and visualization techniques that I can’t even begin to image what we’ll see this time.
Anyway, here is an interview with Jeff Nesbit, of the National Science Foundation, about the challenge.
[Interview via NSF]
March 9, 2007 – Arlington, VA. – The annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge is now underway. Co-sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and Science, the flagship publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the Visualization Challenge is a prestigious competition to find the photographs, illustrations, and digital media that best communicate science, engineering, and technology for education and journalistic purposes.Jeff Nesbit, Director of NSF’s Office of Legislative and Public Affairs, answers questions about the Challenge:
Q: This year marks the fifth Visualization Challenge. What are you expecting?
Nesbit: I’m expecting to be amazed. The intersection of penetrating research, vigorous creativity, and newly imagined perspectives has never failed to produce anything but visual expressions of science that both inform and delight. I expect this year’s entries will top anything we’ve seen before.
Q: But isn’t this just a beauty contest; an art project for scientists?
Nesbit: Far from it. The ability to communicate scientific findings and engineering explorations visually is rapidly becoming a requirement for all researchers. We used to say “publish or perish†in academics to emphasize the importance of sharing our findings. Now we should add to that “Visualize or Vanish!â€
Q: Why is sharing of this kind so important?
Nesbit: Because so often the most powerful use or insight from a discovery or creation is made not by the originators but by those who learned of it later. In the 1950s, the worldwide need for computers was expected to be less than half a dozen. Today, my car has more than four dozen computers, all more powerful than those of 50 years ago.
Q: But does that sharing have to be done visually?
Nesbit: No, but it surely helps. Humans have a native ability to organize and make sense of their world visually. What was once literally an aid to survival now helps us quickly grasp aspects of this world that we will never actually see. Imagine trying to describe in words the stunning vistas seen in pictures taken by the Hubble telescope.
Q: Are you describing visualizations or imaginings?
Nesbit: In some sense, both. I’d put it this way: “Show us something real, based on the best evidence and the most rigorous research, from a vantage point that tells us more but might otherwise be impossible to achieve.†That way we can look inside atoms or peer over the event horizon of black holes.
Q: So the imagination comes in just from aspects of perspective or scale?
Nesbit: It’s also there in terms of translating the world into the visual vocabulary of humans. If you were to stand out in space and look at what the Hubble sees, you’d probably see mostly darkness, not those glorious colors in the posters. That’s because most of the emissions from distant galaxies or dust clouds take place outside of the visual spectrum, in the infrared or x-ray bands. So we assign colors to the images so we can see them but we don’t make up what’s being “colored.â€
Q: Remind us again about the entry deadline and where to find more information.
Nesbit: This year’s entry deadline is May 31st. For rules, entry forms, and more information, see: http://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/scivis or contact Susan S. Mason, OLPA/NSF at 703.292.7748 or smason@nsf.gov.
March 12th, 2007 by misvan
From the Wellcome Trust…
The Biomedical Image Awards 2006 is a striking display of shapes and patterns, and illustrates the microscopic structures of living organisms in a spectacular variety of ways.
Here are a few of the anatomy related ones. Absolutely stunning.
Artery under stress
Branching brain cells
Inner ear
“Despite the obvious visual appeal of the pictures, their primary purpose is investigation. The images are from research projects with the ultimate goal of helping to improve healthcare through new forms of prevention, treatment and vaccination.”
Click here to view the rest of the gallery.
February 6th, 2007 by misvan
The 2007 Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge is here!
Here’s the description from the National Science Foundation:
Some of science’s most powerful statements are not made in words. From the diagrams of DaVinci to Hooke’s microscopic bestiary, the beaks of Darwin’s finches, Rosalind Franklin’s x-rays or the latest photographic marvels retrieved from the remotest galactic outback, visualization of research has a long and literally illustrious history. To illustrate is, etymologically and actually, to enlighten.
You can do science without graphics. But it’s very difficult to communicate it in the absence of pictures. Indeed, some insights can only be made widely comprehensible as images. How many people would have heard of fractal geometry or the double helix or solar flares or synaptic morphology or the cosmic microwave background if they had been described solely in words?The National Science Foundation (NSF) and Science created the Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge to celebrate that grand tradition—and to encourage its continued growth. In a world where science literacy is dismayingly rare, illustrations provide the most immediate and influential connection between scientists and other citizens, and the best hope for nurturing popular interest. Indeed, they are now a necessity for public understanding of research developments: In an increasingly graphics-oriented culture, where people acquire the majority of their news from TV and the World Wide Web, a story without a vivid and intriguing image is often no story at all.
Submission Period:
September 23, 2006 to May 31, 2007
Submissions can be sent anytime during submission period but no later than May 31, 2007
The categories include photography, illustration, information graphics, noninteractive multimedia and interactive multimedia.
Take a look at the winners from last year’s Visualization Challenge here.
