elsewhere – DesignApplause

mental health awareness resources.

May 1, 2022

above > designer george douglas

each year millions of americans face the reality of living with a mental illness. during may, DesignApplause and the rest of the country are raising awareness of mental health. each year we fight stigma, provide support, educate the public and advocate for policies that support people with mental illness and their families.

this post debuted on 1 may 2019 and updated 1 april 2023.

[ resources ]
us mental health awareness week 2023
mental health america
nami / national alliance on mental illness / why care?
national institute of mental health

[ visual inspiration ]

above > self care / designer destinyblue

above > dyslexia is a learning disorder that involves difficulty reading due to problems identifying speech sounds and learning how they relate to letters and words (decoding). also called reading disability, dyslexia affects areas of the brain that process language.

therefore a child’s brain assumes or perceives alphabets / objects differently
the idea of this campaign is to support the children suffering from dyslexia, and to bring awareness amongst parents, teaching staff and others dealing with children of dyslexia to understand what their brain functions like or how it is difficult for them to adapt and understand the basics of learning. designer shravani virkud

above > i’m not. designer anoosh mubashar

above > designer grace bates

above > designer anoushka agarwal / i created a series of poster targeting mental health. i kept the colour theme red, black and white to show the seriousness and potential danger of lack of mental well being. this series shows the suicide aspect of mental ill-being. the posters come with supplementary information to make the message more clear. in all of the posters, i have provided the details of office of counselling and awareness at polyu, hong kong instead of some external counselling service keeping in mind the target audience, the university students and also the ease with which they can be contacted.
this project is also based on project semi-colon. an author uses a semicolon instead of a full stop when he doesn’t want to end his sentence. so the project was based on not giving up hope and making things better instead of resorting to suicide. the noose and the comma are a reflection of the project.

above > idaho federation of families for children’s mental health

above > designer john barton / sometimes a poster is designed to target just a section of the population, who may have trouble expressing their emotions; for example males. barton, a uk graphic designer created this poster for leeds met students’ union, to encourage males to go to counseling / ivline

above/ below > designer patrizia tresca / focusing on the depression and dyslexia, these posters aim to create awareness and engage the viewer with their personal messages.

above > designer george douglas / the links between creativity and depression and how the design industry can tackle mental health via eye on design

above > designer angela nardiello – angelphis 13 / this 11×14 print is created from an original hand-drawn sketch. it communicates enduring the healing process of manipulation/mental abuse. victims of other situations including depression and other disorders, current human rights abuse situations, and more can also relate to this sketch.

floriduh finally gets social distancing message and closes beaches. covid-19 spotlights lack of leadership.

Mar 22, 2020

above > left public pinellas county clearwater beach 19 march / right 21 march

on 19 march the clearwater council votes to delay closing the clearwater beaches until tuesday 24 march. BUT, they had a change of heart and closed them yesterday, 21 march.

florida, the last u.s. state finally gets the message. amid national criticism as early as 15 march, on friday 20 march, governor ron desantis closes beaches, restaurant dining rooms and bars in the state, as well as concert houses and other entertainment venues in broward and palm beach counties which includes fort lauderdale.

that same day, the city of miami beach and miami-dade county took even larger emergency measures by closing all commercial lodging establishments. this means hotels, suite hotels, hotel units within apartment-hotels, hostels, dormitories, motels, and temporary vacation/short term rentals are ordered to shut down operations and tell guests they must leave. the order goes into effect at 11:59 p.m. on monday, march 23. and a curfew throughout the city from midnight to 5 a.m., goes into effect tuesday, 24 march at midnight. “our hotels have always been the lifeblood of our economy, so shuttering them is not something to do impulsively. but right now, as painful as it may be, the reality is we just cannot be a tourist destination,” said miami beach mayor dan gelber in a statement.

above > saturday 21 march

the second to last u.s. state was texas, where on 19 march, governor greg abbott signed an executive order limiting crowd gathering to 10, and to avoid eating or drinking at bars, restaurants, and food courts, or visiting gyms or massage parlors; provided, however, that the use of drive-thru, pickup, or delivery options is allowed and highly encouraged

we certainly can point fingers at the clueless and selfish during spring break as well as st. patrick’s day. but the real problem here is lack of leadership. we applaud the pro-active governors including new york’s andrew cuomo, illinois’s j.b. pritzker, and california’s gavin newsom and city mayors including chicago’s lori lightfoot, and miami-dade’s carlos a. gimenez.

so you ask why is this note such a nastygram? a simple answer is let’s compare governors. when illinois governor j.b. pritzker saw how chicago o’hare was handling international travelers, keeping them bunched up in a line for six hours, he went a little nuts and said that’s exactly what we don’t want to do. we need a social spacing mentality. the result, the airlines kept the passengers in the plane until it was ok to go through immigrations.

new york governor, andrew cuomo, is on cnn every morning soothing worries like mr. rogers. nothing political but common sense examples and suggestions on how to behave, protect seniors and kids, how to be responsible. it definitely impressed the president who we see every day but not sure he’s so soothing.

the spring break crowd. an annual rite of passage. there was no one in florida to protect them. the man at the top failed them. so yes, nastygram seems, just right.

[ DesignApplause covid-19 response ]

chicago residents ordered to ‘stay at home’ compels tony retailers to ‘board up showroom’. covid-19.

Mar 21, 2020

illinois governor j.b. pritzker issued a “stay-at-home” order for the entire state starting saturday, 21 march, as officials take drastic measures to slow the spread of the coronavirus. pritzker announced the directive at a 3 p.m. friday news conference along with chicago mayor lori lightfoot. for dior sometime before midnight the store began a facelift that was completed by 8 a.m. saturday.

we capture several showrooms within a three-block section on rush near oak street that were busy in the wee hours of saturday morning. on a normal day rush street has quite a bit of foot traffic. but nothing is normal right now. we’ll attempt to visit this area and michigan avenue in the upcoming days.

above > rush & walton :photo taken wednesday 30 october 11 a.m. // below > photo taken saturday 21 march 9 a.m. // boards were painted to match.

above > rush & oak photo taken friday 20 march 11 a.m. // below > photo taken saturday 21 march 9 a.m. // one block away a clever-sweet board up.

above > rush & oak photo taken wednesday 20 november 3 p.m. // below > photo taken saturday 21 march 9 a.m. // commencing board up.

above > rush & delaware photo taken friday 24 january 5 p.m. // below > photo taken saturday 21 march 9 a.m. // there’s no board up but all the cars have been removed, an empty showroom save three tesla roadsters.

above > rush & delaware photo taken monday 2 september 3 p.m.

[ DesignApplause covid-19 response ]

first ever image of a black hole captured from the event horizon telescope.

Apr 10, 2019

dan marrone, an astrophysicist who sits on the eht’s science council affirms, “seeing is believing”

the first ever direct image of a supermassive black hole has finally been captured.

the historic image comes from the event horizon telescope, a network of 10 radio telescopes enveloping earth and functioning as a single receiver.

the emblematic doughnut shape of the black hole affirms what theorists have imagined once confronted with albert einstein’s general relatively more than a century ago.

the image shows the boundary between light and dark around a black hole, called the event horizon, the point of no return, where the gravity of the black hole becomes so extreme that nothing that enters can ever escape. at the center of the black hole, time and space become so curved upon themselves that the laws of physics break down completely

einstein’s equations of general relativity, defined modern gravitational physics describing gravity as a phenomenon created when matter warps the geometry of space and time. in turn, curved space and time (“space-time”) tells matter how to move. he published the general theory of relatively in 1915.

shortly after einstein produced the equations for general relativity, german physicist karl schwarzschild calculated that if an object is dense enough, it would create a bottomless pit in space-time known as a “singularity.” anything within a certain radius of that pit — a region known as the “event horizon” — would be swallowed by its gravity. a black hole (another name for such a singularity) consumes clouds of gas and stars that wander too close; not even light can escape.

einstein found the notion irrational debunking it in a research paper.

all the evidence suggested that einstein was wrong about black holes — and that his theory was right.

the cosmic portrait belongs to the black hole at the center of messier 87, the largest galaxy we know of, about 54 million light-years away. “you’re basically looking at a supermassive black hole that’s almost the size of our solar system,” or 38 billion kilometers in diameter, said sera markoff, an astrophysicist at the university of amsterdam.

the image was divulged wednesday at the national press club in washington and in news conferences in six other cities. dan marrone, an astrophysicist a the university of arizona who sits on the eht’s science council affirms, “seeing is believing”

[ national science foundation ] [ washington post ]

migrating birds need a helping hand as they fly through chicago.

Apr 6, 2019

above> the chicago skyline is illuminated by, in part, its buildings on march 30, 2019. (chris sweda/chicago tribune)

birds do fly at night, so going dark reduces the chances of them being lured by the glow, only to smash into glass. most building owners comply.

chicago has long aimed to be a friendlier milepost for migrating birds. since 1995, conservationists and building managers have collaborated on a voluntary program to turn off decorative outdoor lights on downtown buildings after 11 p.m. birds do fly at night, so going dark reduces the chances of them being lured by the glow, only to smash into glass. most building owners comply.

still, the birds come and they die. as many as 1 billion birds are killed in building collisions each year. chicago, located along a major migratory highway, ranks no. 1 in the united states for deaths in both spring and fall, according to a new report by the cornell lab of ornithology.

two reasonable proposals, one in chicago and one in the u.s. house, would make the winged journey less deadly.

the chicago ordinance brought by ald. brian hopkins would require certain new construction to limit the use of glass from ground level to 36 feet or employ etched or frosted glass to avoid inviting reflections of sky or water. nonessential outdoor lights would be automatically turned off between 11 p.m and sunrise. the law would apply to newly built large-scale buildings, not homes or residential buildings with six units or less.

this effort is supported by bird friendly chicago, a coalition of groups including the chicago audubon society, and by chicago architect jeanne gang. the house bill, introduced by u.s. rep. mike quigley of chicago, would apply similar rules to federal buildings nationwide.

not all developers welcome the potential restrictions. but the chicago ordinance doesn’t demand costly retrofitting — it addresses only new construction and significant renovations, when bird-friendly features can be considered at the planning stage. builders might consider that the startling thud of a creature colliding with a window isn’t pleasant for tenants, nor is stepping over the tiny corpses of colorful songbirds in the morning.

apple made national news, not the kind it wanted, in 2017 when its glassy new store on michigan avenue at the chicago river drew birds to their deaths. it soon agreed to dim lights overnight. the same year, northwestern university invested in safety film for its sparkling new lakefront kellogg school of management global hub after its bird body count ratcheted up. sterling bay’s plan for the riverside lincoln yards development includes bird-friendly design.

there are other ways to help. at cornell, researchers can predict the heaviest migration periods down to days and weeks by using radar and weather data. this opens up the possibility for narrowly timed, targeted controls on light pollution and other killers, including wind turbines.

bird populations face other threats, including climate change and habitat loss, that are much harder to solve than lethally transparent windows. no one set out to build perfect bird death traps, but expanses of reflective glass have turned out to be just that. giving winged creatures a helping hand is the right response.

[ chicago tribune ] [ all about birds ] [ bird friendly glass ]

energy winners and losers in proposed republican tax plan.

Nov 6, 2017

losers are clean energy industries as the tax credits get blown away. think wind, solar, renewable biomass, geothermal, hydropower, and eliminate a $7,500 per electric vehicle tax credit. winners are extending credits in nuclear and continued intangible drilling cost deductions that allows producers to recover investment costs quickly in oil and gas sector. [rk] washington examiner

u.s. tax code overhaul would bulldoze incentive for restoring time-honored architectural gems.

Nov 5, 2017

above > the rookery building’s central light court and lobby, remodeled in 1905 by frank lloyd wright. photo by raymond boyd/michael ochs archives collection/getty images

u.s. tax code overhaul would bulldoze incentive for restoring time-honored architectural gems. the overhaul of the tax code unveiled thursday by house republican leaders would hit hard at one of chicago’s great cultural assets. [rk] chicago tribune

apple’s next iphone will use modems from intel, replacing qualcomm chips.

Jun 10, 2016

apple’s next iphone will use modems from intel, replacing qualcomm chips in some versions of the new handset, a move by the world’s most-valuable public company to diversify its supplier base. no mention of performance. via adage [RK]

nasa looking for public to help photograph jupiter.

Dec 7, 2015

artist’s rendering of what the juno probe will look like as it flies by jupiter | nasa/jpl

attention amateur astronomers, nasa wants you. in 5 august 2011, nasa launched juno, a new frontiers mission to the planet jupiter. nasa is now recruiting members of the public to help direct its photography efforts in space and process the images taken by junocam, a high-res camera designed not only to take stunning, scientifically useful photos of jupiter, but to get the public involved, too.

but junocam can’t take pictures if it doesn’t know what to photograph and nasa is now asking amateur astronomers to visit the camera’s website to help decide which areas of jupiter to photograph by submitting telescopic images of the planet from back on earth.

the public will be invited to download raw images and process them at home in an attempt to get the best images of a planet that hasn’t been photographed by a nasa spacecraft since 1979.

candy hansen, a member of the project’s science team, says nasa legitimately needs the public’s help. “in between our close jupiter flybys, juno goes far from the planet, and jupiter will shrink in junocam’s field of view to a size too small to be useful for choosing which features to capture,” she explains in a release. “so we really are counting on having help from ground-based observers.”

in less than seven months, juno will passby jupiter on 4 july 2016.

junocam was designed to take pictures in strips because because the spacecraft spins 2 revolutions a minute. it snaps photos through red, green and blue filters in one rotation, near-infrared on the next. the photos are stitched together into a composite image back on earth. to see how it works, visit this [ gallery ] of images of the earth and moon gathered as the spacecraft began its spinning trajectory towards jupiter.
[ interested? ]

[ juno mission gallery ]

the east coast of south america is visible in this methane image, while clouds cover the antarctic, taken by juno at a distance of 10,524 km | processed by sarunia at unmannedspaceflight

nasa’s juno probe captured the image data for this composite picture during its earth flyby on oct. 9. separate images were combined by ken kremer and marco di lorenzo, and false-color blue has been added to reflect a view provided by a near-infrared filter that is typically used to detect methane

amazon boosts its brand awareness with a drone ad.

Dec 2, 2015

amid all the news in recent weeks, one event sticks out for several reasons. the event was not disquieting. the event was refreshingly science fiction. the event was a glimpse of what drone delivery could look like. more specifically what amazon’s prime air drone service, delivering packages up to five pounds in 30-minute or less could look like. the event was a masterful example of a brand leader using its resources, not a huge amount in this case, working hard to improve its image as a service provider.

[ cnn / jeanne moos dissects re-design ] [ 7 reasons why drone delivery won’t work ] [ faa issues permit for drone flight school ]