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National HIV Testing Week Design for Life
18 November 2017

Design for Life

A simple pink triangle, inverted and owned by those it was first used to prosecute. A turtle flipped onto its back, choking on a cigarette. A comic on safe sex for the teens of 1970s America. This is the nexus of graphic design and public health, on show at The Wellcome Collection in Central London. The exhibit features objects from around the world and across the centuries, from seventeenth-century plague notices, to posters about dementia, to technological billboards that trap mosquitoes. Shown here is a poster designed by gay activists in 1980s New York, when the AIDS epidemic was ravaging the city. The pink triangle was initially used to label homosexuals in Nazi concentration camps, but was later flipped and adopted by the gay community as a symbol of solidarity. This poster is one of many featured in the exhibition, which explores how graphic design persuades, informs and empowers us.

National HIV Testing Week begins today

Written by Deborah Oakley

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BPoD stands for Biomedical Picture of the Day. Managed by the MRC Laboratory of Medical Sciences until Jul 2023, it is now run independently by a dedicated team of scientists and writers. The website aims to engage everyone, young and old, in the wonders of biology, and its influence on medicine. The ever-growing archive of more than 4000 research images documents over a decade of progress. Explore the collection and see what you discover. Images are kindly provided for inclusion on this website through the generosity of scientists across the globe.

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