One of the consequences of the coronavirus pandemic has been the proliferation of memes, guides, and other visual aids concerned with keeping people healthy. Everyone from the Wu-Tang Clan (cool!) to Ted Cruz (ugh) has weighed in, with their own advice on how to, for example, keep your hands off your face.
Jack Koloskus is The Outline’s design whiz. He makes our work and our website special and fresh, and he has terrific visual taste. We've presented him with eight different coronavirus graphics that offer different pandemic best practices. Jack offered his thoughts on the graphics below, rating them on a scale of 0 to 10, with a brief accompanying description.
We all have a role in combatting #COVID19.
— Senator Ted Cruz (@SenTedCruz) March 16, 2020
Below are some tips for how you can help prevent spread of the #coronavirus:
🤧Cover your sneeze or cough with a tissue.
🧼Wash your hands regularly.
🏠Stay home if you are sick.
📞Call your medical provider before going in person. pic.twitter.com/ZCK1eeGGjM
Jack: Ted Cruz is a dip but this graphic is... fine. Or at least it seems like it is, but maybe it's bad. Who coughs into a tissue? Cough into your elbow. And no mention of washing your hands for 20 seconds, just “frequently.” I don't believe washing your hands 20 times for one second each time works the same way. Graphic- wise this is fine (it is red because this is serious) but the information seems bad which is bad! 3/10.
Here’s @DrOz dos and donts #coronavirus #CoronaVirusUpdate #gdny pic.twitter.com/UDlu9eQkoo
— Rosanna Scotto (@rosannascotto) March 6, 2020
Jack: Oh hell yeah, this graphic has some information. This is probably too much information, but seeing as how none of the text is too small to read it's a great graphic. I've learned a lot here. And who else is talking about what you should be eating? 8/10.
Protect Ya Neck against the Coronavirus. We are making a few thousand prints and distributing them across New York City. Feel FREE to do the same in your City.
— Wu Tang Clan (@WuTangClan) March 15, 2020
Share and RT this to the world. #wutang pic.twitter.com/coS5M3WdiW
Jack: Straightforward. This is a handy thing to remember, but these are all things we're probably remembering regardless of this mnemonic device. If you're going to use that concept, it should be for more detailed information in my opinion. Like:
Wash
Ur hands for at least
Twenty seconds
And
Never forget to wash the tips of your fin
Gers since those are the parts of your hands you actually touch your face with
5/10.
The top of Google search results. Image via Google.
Jack: Awful, so awful. The numbering here doesn't make any sense. Why is item No. 4, “feet,” to stay three feet apart? “4. FEET, Stay 3 feet apart"??? Make that item No. 3 at LEAST. I will never remember this. I have already forgotten the helpful information. 1/10.
Image via Red Cross.
Jack: Modernism strikes again. Your icons are nice but they communicate nothing! “Spray-paint your bathroom,” “hold suds in your hands without scrubbing,” “hold your noodle of an arm in the air while you do something with your mouth” — have a little fun with illustration here and maybe we'd learn something! At least the information is correct. 3/10.
A graphic displayed by an NBC affiliate TV station in Nebraska. Image via KSNB-TV.
Jack: Now this is what I call graphic design. A 3-D model showing me where exactly on my body I should be feeling my sore throat? What would I do without this? And that nose icon is dope. Probably not enough information here, i.e. what kind of cough (wet/dry) is problematic, or what do you actually do if you experience any of these symptoms. But maybe that's just not the goal of this graphic, which knows what it is and isn't trying to be anything else. And whoever made it was obviously enjoying themselves, which is really what we all need most in this time of global difficulty. 9/10.
A guide from the BBC. Image via BBC.
Jack: See this is what that other one needs to learn from. I can see some vigorous motion in those hands. When this person lifts their noodle arms, the relationship between arm and face is much better illustrated here. I’m docking points because nobody touches their face like that. You don't have to tell me not to place my open palm over my left eye, I was never going to do that. Please revise the illustration to depict someone picking their nose right here so that way I’ll actually learn. 6/10.
An advisory from the Virginia state government. Image via the Virginia Department of Health.
Jack: I love the use of purple here. Really non-traditional health poster color, which I commend this graphic for. This information seems good, I like the flow from the globe to the three symptoms by a dotted line. But wait...
This icon about not coughing into your hand is a guy coughing into his hand. Come on! I'd recommend some new icons here. That one is fatally flawed and the “trouble breathing” icon looks more like a guy who’s got some hot breath after eating some kind of weird food. But the purple here has still won me over. 7/10.
This article was originally published by Noah Kulwin from TheOutline.com on March 16, 2020.