According to the live map that tracks the spread of coronavirus (2019-nCoV), there are nearly 10,000 people currently infected with the virus. There have also been over 200 deaths after people contracted the virus which causes such symptoms as fever, cough and shortness of breath and conditions varying from people being mildly sick to people being severely ill and dying.
Since the initial cases had links to a large seafood and animal market in Wuhan, the virus is thought to originate in animals, but such information has not been officially confirmed. According to Wikipedia, “Comparisons of genetic sequences between this virus and other virus samples have shown similarities to SARS-CoV (79.5%) and bat coronaviruses (96%),” because of this, it’s highly likely that bats were the origin of the current virus devastating China.
As coronavirus is rapidly spreading it is reported that Chinese dog owners rush to buy face masks for their dogs
Image credits: Zhou Tianxiao
Despite the fact that The World Health Organisation (WHO) reported that there is no evidence suggesting house animals can be infected with the new strain of coronavirus, Chinese people have still gone one step ahead to protect their pets from a potential threat. Sales of pet masks have reportedly skyrocketed since the initial outbreak of the coronavirus and don’t seem to be stopping anytime soon.
Image credits: Zhou Tianxiao
Image credits: Zhou Tianxiao
Zhou Tianxiao, a 33-year-old online retailer from Beijing, reported that he’s selling ten times the amount of dog masks than he usually did before the spread of the Wuhan coronavirus. The man initially sold masks designed specifically for dogs to help protect the pooches from the air pollution, a business he started back in 2018 on e-commerce site Taobao.
Image credits: Zhou Tianxiao
Image credits: Zhou Tianxiao
“[The dog masks] might not be as professional as the medical masks made for humans, but they are functional,” Zhou told MailOnline. The retailer sells the dog masks at the price of 49 yuan ($7) for the pack of three.
Image credits: Zhou Tianxiao
Image credits: Zhou Tianxiao
Zhou Tianxiao also said that the main purpose of the masks is “o block out smog, stop dogs from eating or licking food on the floor and prevent them from being exposed to the virus”.
Headspace's Healthy, Happy America initiative will see the brand partner with local organisations to put on mindfulness events in cities across the US. We talk to Chief Creative Officer Caroline Pay about the project, and Headspace's plans for the future
Vets are real everyday heroes. Every single day, they help heal our pets, but they don’t get enough praise. Fortunately, once in a while, somebody comes along who spares no expense to show their utmost appreciation for veterinarians.
David MacNeil thanked the vets who saved his 7-year-old Golden Retriever, Scout, from cancer with a 6 million dollar Super Bowl ad. And the best part? He encouraged people to donate to the vets who saved his dog and all the funds raised from that commercial will support research at the heroes’ veterinary school and help them buy new equipment. That way, they’ll be able to diagnose and treat cancer even better: not just in animals but in humans, too.
“Scout’s illness devastated us. We wanted this year’s Super Bowl effort to not only raise awareness but also financial support for the incredible research and innovative treatments happening at the University of Wisconsin School of Veterinary Medicine, where Scout is still a patient,” Macneil said in a statement.
“We wanted to use the biggest stage possible to highlight Scout’s story and these incredible breakthroughs, which are not just limited to helping dogs and pets. This research will help advance cancer treatments for humans as well, so there’s the potential to save millions of lives of all species.”
Vets saved 7-year-old Scout from cancer and his owner thanked them with a 6 million dollar ad
Meanwhile, the dean of the School of Veterinary Medicine at the University of Wisconsin in Madison, Mark Markel, said that this is an opportunity for “veterinary medicine worldwide.”
“So much of what’s known globally today about how best to diagnose and treat devastating diseases such as cancer originated in veterinary medicine. We’re thrilled to share with Super Bowl viewers how our profession benefits beloved animals like Scout and helps people, too,” he shared his thoughts in a statement.
Scout collapsed in the summer of 2019, was diagnosed with cancer and was given only one month to live. However, the founder and CEO of car accessories company WeatherTech, MacNeil, couldn’t accept this fate for his best buddy.
He decided not to put down his Golden Retriever despite him having only a 1 percent chance to survive: “I’m like, ‘I’m not putting that dog down. There’s just absolutely no way.”
Instead, he took Scout to the UW School of Veterinary Medicine where vets treated him with chemotherapy and radiation. Now, Scout’s tumor is nearly entirely gone.
The vets are doing everything they can to help Scout recover
MacNeil’s Super Bowl ad is a 30-second commercial called ‘Lucky Dog’ and encouraged people to donate money to support tireless vets like the ones who saved Scout. “I hope it has a positive impact on cancer for animals and people, all over the world,” he said about the commercial.
There are three main options when it comes to treating pets with cancer: surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation therapy (aka radiotherapy). These can also be used in combination with other treatments to try and save an animal’s life.
The type of treatment advised is linked to the type of cancer, its growth rate, as well as how far it has spread. Surgery, i.e. cutting out the tumor, is considered to be the oldest, most effective, and most frequently used type of treatment. Nowadays, it’s usually done alongside chemotherapy and radiotherapy. All in the hopes of saving the animal, so he can be just like Scout the Golden Retriever.
Organisers of the Design Shanghai trade fair and the Festival of Design architecture conference have cancelled their March 2020 events as the coronavirus outbreak disrupts travel and business in China.
Design Shanghai, the biggest contemporary design show in China, said it was moving the fair to May "to ensure the welfare and safety of visitors to our show".
Shanghai architect Neri&Hu has scrapped plans for its Festival of Design conference after "carefully evaluating the situation and potential risks." The event will return in March 2021.
The two high-profile events are among an increasing number of industry events affected by the virus, which has so far claimed 213 lives in China.
Shows in Shanghai, Shenzhen and Guangzhou affected
Shenzhen International Furniture Fair, which was due to take place from 18 to 21 March, announced it has postponed its dates to June.
The Department of Commerce of Guangdong Province and Guangzhou Municipal Commerce Bureau announced the suspension of all large trade events "to ensure health and safety of all participants".
The 45thChina International Furniture Fair, which was due to take place in Guangzhou from 18 to 21 March, is among events affected.
Design Shanghai postponed for "safety of visitors"
Design Shanghai was scheduled to take place from 12 to 15 March at the Shanghai World Expo Exhibition and Convention Centre.
It will now take place in the same location from 26 to 29 May, assuming that the virus has been contained by then.
"After careful consideration and advice, we have made the difficult decision to postpone Design Shanghai to ensure the welfare and safety of visitors to our show, our exhibitors and our team," said Design Shanghai director Zhuo Tan.
"We are grateful to have confirmed new dates in the same venue with the same layout so as not to compromise the quality and success of the fair," she continued.
"We appreciate the show of support that we have received from the design community and our partners during this time."
The organisers of Design Shanghai made the decision in consultation with the Chinese government and local authorities, as well as the fair partners, venue and local team. Exhibitors were notified on 30 January.
Launched in 2014 by Media 10, Design Shanghai has become one of the region's most highly acclaimed shows for the design market. The fair was sold to Clarion Events in June 2019.
Festival of Design cancelled due to "potential risks"
Neri&Hu told Dezeen they had decided "with great disappointment" to cancel the 2020 edition of Festival of Design.
The third edition of the annual conference, which invites architects from around the world to deliver lectures, was due to be held in Shanghai at the same time as Design Shanghai.
"It is with great disappointment that we have to inform all related parties on this unexpected decision, but it seems to be the best course of action at this time, setting the health and safety of our guests and attendees as our top priority," said Neri&Hu's Rossana Hu and Lyndon Neri.
"We shall resume the Festival of Design in Spring 2021, but for now, we pray for those whose health is affected by the virus outbreak and hope that the design community will be effective in offering our own contribution to the on-going relief efforts," they added.
Coronavirus a global emergency
The first case of flu-like coronavirus infection was detected in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province, on 31 December. Efforts to contain the virus have failed, with almost 10,000 cases reported in China so far and infections reported around the world.
The World Health Organization yesterday declared the outbreak a global emergency.
The 25,000-square-metre Huoshenshan facility in Wuhan is expected to be in operation by 3 February, while a second 1,600-bed hospital called Leishenshan is set to be ready by 5 February.
Zaha Hadid Architects has revealed its proposal for four interconnected towers in Shenzhen, China, which will contain the open-plan headquarters for OPPO.
Set to break ground later this year, the amorphous OPPO headquarters is designed by Zaha Hadid Architects to accommodate the continual growth of the company dubbed as China's leading smartphone manufacturer.
The headquarters will measure 185,000-square-metres, and in a bid to echo the company's "commitment to connectivity", it will contain a number of large atriums surrounded by light-filled open-plan offices.
"OPPO launched their first phone in 2008, growing to become China's leading smartphone manufacturer and the fifth largest worldwide with over 40,000 employees in more than 40 countries," explained the studio.
"Accommodating this growth, OPPO's new headquarters will continue their commitment to connectivity through design."
Zaha Hadid Architects' proposal for the OPPO headquarters was the winning design in a international competition – seeing off competition from the likes of BIG, SOM and Rogers Stirk Harbour + Partners.
The building is slated for completion in 2025. The highest of its four towers will contain 42 storeys, reaching 200 metres in height.
The studio has dedicated two of the towers solely to open-plan office space. These towers will be linked by a 20-storey lobby and punctured by a number of large atriums.
Meanwhile, the remaining two towers will serve as external service structures and contain all the building's main circulatory routes.
This configuration is designed by Zaha Hadid Architects to create open, uninterrupted floor space throughout the offices, and encourage collaboration between different departments as a result.
"Locating the towers' service cores externally frees the centre of each floor from obstructions; providing uninterrupted views throughout the building that will enhance interaction between employees," said the studio.
"The abundance of natural light, varied working environments and diversity of routes for staff and visitors to move through the building are all conducive to creative engagement and spontaneity."
Though different in size, the towers will be unified by their sinuous glass forms that taper inwards towards ground level.
This reduction in floor area is designed to cater for a large landscaped plaza planned at street level, which is hoped will provide "new civic space for the city". Here there will also be an art gallery, shops, restaurants and a direct link to Shenzhen's subway.
Once complete, the OPPO headquarters will also contain publicly accessible dining, leisure and entertainment facilities on the 10th floor, and a public viewpoint at roof level.
Zaha Hadid Architects is an international architecture studio founded in 1980 by the late Pritzker Prize-winning architect Zaha Hadid. Today, it is headed up by Patrik Schumacher who recently defended architecture's long-hours culture at Dezeen Day.
Italian ceramicist Paola Paronetto has unveiled two new vase designs, created using her distinctive "paper clay" technique.
Based in the Alpine village of Pordenone, where she grew up, Paronetto has developed a unique method for creating ceramics with seemingly fragile shapes and proportions.
Her technique involves adding a certain amount of paper pulp to the ceramic mixture, which offers extra stability.
It also makes it possible to add vertical folds that will remain after the clay has been fired.
Paronetto has used the process to create two new designs, which she unveiled at the Maison&Objet homeware fair in Paris earlier this month.
Named Bosco and Pistilli, both are designed to replicate forms in nature.
Bosco is a set of slender vessels, with arms that extend out like the branches of a tree. The word "bosco" means wood in Italian.
This is one of the most difficult pieces to produce in Paronetto's whole collection – the mixture has to be exactly right in order for the branches to stay in place throughout the production process.
Pistilli is a series of tired vessels, available in a variety of different shapes and sizes. The name is a reference to the female reproductive part of a flower, the pistol.
"Both families of objects are composed of tubular shapes to assume facets that are both evocative and abstract, almost playful," reads a statement released by Paronetto.
"As suggested by their names, the objects of the Bosco and Pistilli series acquire their maximum expressiveness in groups, playing with different heights and/or colours, just as in nature."
Paronetto has spent a decade developing her paper clay technique. Each piece is unique, handmade by the ceramicist using her traditional potter's wheel.
Her best-known work is the ongoing Cartocci series, which includes vessels in the shapes of bottles and cacti, as well as bowls that resemble mushrooms.
The ceramicist recently also used the technique to create a series of ceramic pendant lamps.
“Just because a story is big doesn’t mean that it’s visual, or that it merits a response from us,” Simon Scarr tells Design Week. “We try to work on stories that really need our work — where the visual aspects are essential to the understanding.”
The team publishes graphics to Reuters.com and distributes content to clients internationally. Reuters is a news agency, which media and corporate companies from all over the world subscribe to. This means that the focus must have “global or at least regional appeal”. “As much as a mayor’s race in Spokane may be of huge interest for that community, it won’t play on the global scale,” Scarr says.
It means they must always consider the “end user of the work”, which is not necessarily a reader. A client might be a newspaper, but it could also be a company with an online product. That means that the team must produce a file that is easy to edit, for individual client’s use. “We have to go one step beyond thinking how something will look in the window of a web browser,” Scarr explains. It has to be done “in a way that’s easy to understand if someone if picking these files apart and editing them”.
Illustrations for the Hong Kong protests. Courtesy of Reuters
Another consideration is language. Because of the agency’s international focus, not all clients use the English language, so the graphics and presentations have to be built in a way that is easy to translate. And although digital is a focus, many clients still have a printed product. A print client might want a static map or a series of static charts, Scarr says. “We would never send out a large interactive file and expect a print client to pick that apart,” he adds. “Everything has the customer in mind.”
Most importantly, it’s the “visual merit” of a story that matters. Scarr says a question that’s often asked among the team is: “Will the visuals add value, or can the reader understand this story just as well without them?”
How does the team work?
Scarr is based in Singapore, but the graphics team has desks in New York, London, and Bangalore. There are around 20 members in the entire team. Each desk tends to focus mostly on their region (divided by AMERS, EMEA, and APAC), but there is some collaboration on stories with “global elements” and pre-planned major events, like a recently published feature on Davos (with floating Bill Gates’ faces to show the number of years the Microsoft founder has attended the annual Swiss conference). The 2020 Tokyo Olympics coverage will be a joint effort between all bureaus.
“Cross-region collaboration can also be driven by pairing up particular skillsets, data-heads, cartographers, illustrates and codes to work together,” Scarr says. “We think of ourselves as one large team and have communication channels that make it easy for us to share work, discuss ideas and solicit feedback, regardless of where we are in the world.”
That also means working with the entire newsroom. Most of the team are reporters by trade, Scarr says — although he is an exception, having gained a diploma in Newspaper Design and Information Graphics. But having access to the Reuters newsroom — with reports on the ground and investigative journalism — means that the team can work with an enviable variety of datasets.
The visual showing the edited police procedures manual. Courtesy of Reuters
A recent visual for the Hong Kong protests showed changes the police made to their guidelines on the use of force in the run up to October’s violence. Discovered by a reporter at the Hong Kong bureau — “a story by itself”, Scarr says — the information then became part of a “bigger immersive project”. The team highlighted in yellow all the additions the police made (such as suggestions of pepper spray, tear gas and water cannons as law enforcement) and strike-throughs for removed phrases. For example, the framework of actions against police by assailants that were considered aggressive changed from, “Physical assault not intended to cause serious bodily injury” to “Physical assault to cause or likely to cause bodily injury to others”, significantly loosening police restrictions.
Illustration of the weapons used during the Hong Kong protests. Courtesy of Reuters
What’s the process like?
Scarr says while the team is “open to experimentation” in terms of new technology, there’s a regular suite of programmes it uses. Adobe Illustrator is prime among them, as well as QIS or ArcGIS for mapping and plotting map layers and Cinema 4D for 3-D work. D3.js is used for a lot of the data visualisation.
When it comes to coming up with ideas for the visuals, the process is less linear. “Truthfully, we often don’t know the best way to visualise something until we start trying to do it,” Scarr says. “For most of the pieces we do, there is a sad trail of trial and error.”
Drowning in plastic: Visualising the world’s addiction to single-use plastic bottles. Around the world, almost 1 million are purchased every minute. The majority end up in the environment, landfill sites, or oceans around the world. https://t.co/JS3ZoEnH1rpic.twitter.com/RjIIwHrzYX
But just as great ideas can end up as mediocre visuals, often the simplest data makes the most impactful graphic. One particularly memorable motion graphic came from a simple fact: In 2019, almost 1 million plastic bottles were purchased every minute. It shows a human figure being ‘drowned’ in plastic bottles, with a timer that counts how many plastic bottles have been sold since the page was opened.
As you scroll down, more graphics show the quantity by hour (at which point Rio de Janeiro’s Christ the Redeemer would have been covered) and by day — when 1.3bn bottles would pile up to half the size of the Eiffel Tower. In ten years, 4 trillion bottles have been sold, enough to cover the city of Manhattan.
Visualisation showing the amount of plastic humans inadvertently consumer. Courtesy of Reuters
The team is aware that projects are likely to be shared on social media, and so should look good. Illustrations for the Hong Kong weapons piece were done in-house in Singapore by Marco Hernandez, lending a hand-drawn illustrative style that contrasts with the more-realistically rendered models of bullets and weapons.
What are the challenges?
A good news sense is crucial. The biggest story in the world might not be on the pages the day after, and Scarr says it would not be worth it to commit time to visualise these. It’s also possible to follow stories as they break. The recent coverage of Coronavirus — the respiratory illness that has spread from Wuhan, China — is a good example of this. First there was a global map charting the outbreak of cases, then a chart with pending cases against deaths and recoveries and another map of mainland China with localised cases. “As that story continues to grow,” Scarr says, “you spot more angles to look at and more interesting ideas.”
Visualising the scale of plastic bottle use. Courtesy of Reuters
It also requires being selective, sometimes disapprovingly so. “There are unlimited possibilities for visual story-telling and with unlimited resource we would probably try to do them all,” he says. “But the fact of the matter is, we are a moderately sized team trying to cover the entire world, so we can only really engage on a tiny fraction of the projects we would like to.”
What’s next?
Scarr is sure that things might change with the advent of virtual and augmented reality — “there’s a progression in how people are absorbing content,” he says. But the team has to think about how widespread that technology is. “We’re not aggressively working on projects using that technology right now, but we do discuss new ways of tackling projects, especially with sports.” Right now, it’s simplicity that’s key: People are used to scrolling down through stories, so the interactive graphics often work with this motion.
The Star Wars graphic, which shows how man lightsaber strikes characters made against each other during the films. Courtesy of Reuters
Sometimes the graphics team dabble outside of serious news into lighter stories. Like an infographic on Star Wars, published on the release of the 2019’s The Rise Of Skywalker, showing the number of lightsaber strikes made by each characters in the science fiction saga. The statistics were visualised in signature blue, red and greens of the weapons. (Mark Hamill, the actor who played Luke Skywalker liked the story on Twitter.) The team has also published graphics for the Oscars, using different shades of gold to represent nominations earned by films.
Scarr hints that there are more of these projects to come — including a recurring idea about the proliferation of mangoes — and not simply because they are popular online. “It’s a welcome change of pace after covering the negativity or catastrophic events that often drive the news agenda,” he says.
