Medical animations are among the most difficult animations to produce.
Many beautifully rendered medical animations have been created in recent years with the evolving technology able to produce them. While these animations are entertaining and inspiring to look at, many fail to actually educate because they don’t tell an educational story. This becomes especially important when considering something completely conceptual, like cellular animation. An effective cellular animation engages the viewer, tells them exactly what is happening, and leaves them with a better understanding of a certain cellular process.
In fact, the most in demand medical animations are cellular animations and method of action animations (MOAs). Pharmaceutical companies have found the power of medical animations for marketing, educating physicians and patients, and of course selling their drugs. So who do the top pharmaceutical companies turn to when they need top notch medical animations? They go to Hurd Studios.
The president of Hurd Studios, Jane Hurd, co-founded her medical animation firm in 1998. Located right on Fifth Avenue in New York, her firm has quickly grown to become one of the most highly respected firms in medical animation. They received two Awards of Excellence and a Silver Award from the RX Club, have been featured in Fortune Small Business Magazine and on CNN, and have created animations for all of the top-ten pharmaceutical companies as well as PBS and WebMD.
No matter who the audience is, Hurd Studios creates aesthetic, simple, effective, and above all educational medical animations. Just take a look at this animation on how cranberry juice prevents urinary tract infections (UTIs).
Here are some more samples of their work.
And for those of you interested in going into medical illustration/animation, be sure to know the name Hurd Studios.
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.
Well it has finally arrived. The full length version of XVIVO’s Inner Life of a Cell is available to watch, complete with narration and labels. It’s no longer just a beautiful piece of animation, but a complete educational molecular animation.
Take a look at the shorter, more dramatic, version here.
The University of Bern, Switzerland is the world leader in virtual autopsy (virtopsy) research. I wanted to share with you this video they produced detailing the entire virtual autopsy procedure. Forensic science has always been a fascinating field, but now with the introduction of medical imaging technology, it’s getting even more exciting.
One of my favorite sites on anatomical illustration and one of the inspirations behind my blog is the National Library of Medicine’s, Dream Anatomy. It details the progression of anatomical illustration from the 1500s to the present. The site itself if very easy to navigate and I suggest you sit down and read it from beginning to end. Now, Dream Anatomy is available in print for the first time. The Dream Anatomy Catalog includes:
A thoughtful, richly illustrated essay on the history of anatomical illustration and display
170 rare and striking illustrations and photos, many in color
A comprehensive timeline of the history of anatomy
An explanation of the print technologies used for anatomical illustration
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