Influencer

The coronavirus image is perfectly tethered to its underlying reality – altogether new, yet uncannily familiar. Sometimes I see a benign dandelion, other times an orange studded with cloves. Most of the time, I see a stop sign or a panic button. A few times it has reminded me of the tomato pin cushion my mother kept in her sewing box. I couldn’t resist reaching for that soft, squishy pin cushion despite the inevitable pricked fingers.

The now ubiquitous coronavirus image was created by the medical illustrator, Alissa Eckert at the CDC. According to an article in the NYT, Ms. Eckert and her colleagues were asked to create “an identity” for the coronavirus – “something to grab the public’s attention.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/01/health/coronavirus-illustration-cdc.html

The colors, red and grey, were chosen as the most “arresting.” And despite the presence of more “m” proteins than spiky “s” proteins, Ms. Eckert decided to highlight the S protein structure to focus and warn people of the dangers of the virus’s spread.

 “Someone recently told Ms. Eckert that her image haunts them on their occasional trips to the grocery store. If they reach out to touch something, they’ll picture that spiky gray blob and pause. She was glad to hear it, she said. “It’s out there doing its job.”

[For a more photographic representation of the coronavirus, see this wonderful piece The Times ran six months later: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/health/coronavirus-unveiled.html]

Many aspects of the pandemic have changed – the way it is spread, the way it is treated – but the way it has been represented visually has remained consistent. The  coronavirus image – a single, static molecule disconnected from disease – gives heft and hue to a hidden danger, the most frightening kind. The image has worked extremely well to focus our attention on websites and news reports and to warn us to stay on the alert. Like so much in our visual screen world, the pandemic has a logo, an icon, that helps to instantaneously communicate and contain our fears.