COVIDtests.gov uses a free font that was developed for every language
Plus: A U.S. Senate candidate in Louisiana smoked marijuana in a campaign ad
Hello, in this week’s issue we’ll look at…
COVIDtests.gov uses a free font that was developed for every language
A U.S. Senate candidate in Louisiana smoked marijuana in his campaign ad
Interscope Records commissioned art of its biggest albums for its 30th b-day
The Associated Press is selling its photojournalism as NFTs
COVIDtests.gov uses a free font that was developed for every language
The U.S. government’s website to order free COVID-19 tests soft-launched today, one day ahead of schedule, and the site’s design is simple, clear, and easy-to-use, with an open-source typeface that was designed to be used in any language.
The site uses Noto Sans, which is part of a free typeface family that was developed for Google to work in every language in the Unicode Consortium standard and to be easy to read on mobile devices. The typeface was named for “tofu,” the nickname for the square tofu-like glyphs like this □□□ that appear when a computer doesn’t have the proper characters to display text.
Noto = no tofu, because the typeface has every character for more than 800 languages and more than 100 writing systems, living and dead. Though COVIDtests.gov sticks to English and Spanish, it could theoretically be translated into Cuneiform and nothing would be lost. Google commissioned Monotype to design Noto, which was released in 2016 after five years of work, according to the type foundry.
COVIDtests.gov has big blue “Order Free At-Home Tests” buttons at the top and bottom of the page that take users to a USPS checkout page where you don’t have to enter your email address if you don’t want to and it costs $0.00 with $0.00 in shipping and handling to order.
The site also has links to information about health insurance companies paying for at-home tests and how to find your nearest free testing site. The bottom of the page includes information about what to do if you test positive or negative, plus public health recommendations to protect yourself and others from COVID.
We don’t get to decide when the pandemic is over, COVID does, and the site presents testing as just one step to protect yourself and others, along with vaccines, boosters, well-fitting masks when gathering indoors, and social distancing.
While trust in public institutions has been trending downwards in recent years, the site leans on the credentials of some of the most admired brands in the federal government. A banner at the top of the page notes the website and others that use .gov are official sites of the U.S. government, while logos for two of the most popular federal agencies are at the bottom: the Department of Health and Human Services, which runs the We Can Do This COVID-19 public education campaign, and the U.S. Postal Service, which will deliver the tests. An April 2020 Pew poll, just one month into the pandemic, found USPS and HHS had 91% and 73% approval ratings, respectively.
The federal government has been criticized for unclear public health recommendations throughout the pandemic, but COVIDtests.gov is direct and easy to understand. Should the site’s official launch and subsequent test deliveries go as planned, the site could be an example of how governments can rebuild trust and deliver for citizens with clean user interface and simple design.
A U.S. Senate candidate in Louisiana smoked marijuana in his campaign ad
Now here’s something I haven’t seen before. Gary Chambers Jr., a progressive Democratic candidate running in his party’s primary in Louisiana to take on incumbent Republican Sen. John Kennedy, just put out a campaign ad in which he smokes pot to highlight racial bias in marijuana enforcement.
The 37-second ad is titled “37 Seconds” for the stat Chambers opens up with that someone is arrested for possession of marijuana every 37 seconds, according to the ACLU. Chambers lights up while sitting in a chair outside and ends the ad by saying, “Most of the people police are arrested aren't dealers, but rather people with small amounts of pot, just like me.” You can watch the full ad here.
Chambers is running against moderate Democrat Luke Mixon, and his ad stakes out a position that’s broadly popular in an attention-grabbing way and connects the war on drugs to racial justice. Over the past 20 years, support for legalizing marijuana has doubled, from 34% in 2001 to 68% in 2021, according to Gallup, and recreational marijuana is now legal in 19 states, according to NORML, a marijuana legalization group. Louisiana, however, is not among them.
“I hope this ad works to not only destigmatize the use of marijuana, but also forces a new conversation that creates the pathway to legalize this beneficial drug, and forgive those who were arrested due to outdated ideology,” Chambers tweeted.
Interscope Records commissioned art of its biggest albums for its 30th b-day
Artists Inspired by Music: Interscope Reimaged is an exhibition inspired by some of the biggest albums in Interscope Records’ 30-year history by some of the biggest names in contemporary art.
Opening Jan. 30 at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the show will include more than 50 commissioned works, including Kehinde Wiley’s “The Watcher” (2021) above, which was inspired by Dr. Dre’s 2001, plus takes on Billie Elish’s Don’t Smile at Me, Kendrick Lamar’s good kid, m.A.A.d. city, and Blackpink’s The Album.
According to a list published by Elle, the exhibition will also include…
Henni Alftan on Olivia Rodrigo’s SOUR
Issy Wood on Gwen Stefani’s Love. Angel. Music. Baby.
Loie Hollowell on Lady Gaga’s Fame Monster
KAWS on Snoop Dogg’s Doggystyle
Sayre Gomez on 50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’
Takashi Murakami on Juice WRLD’s Goodbye and Good Riddance
Shepard Fairey on the Yeah Yeah Yeahs’ Fever to Tell
Damien Hirst on Eminem’s entire catalogue
Interscope co-founder Jimmy Iovine said in a statement to Complex the goal was to assemble to most admired visual artists and “empower them with that same creative license” they give their recording artists. Excited to see what they’ve come up with!
The Associated Press is selling its photojournalism as NFTs
The Associated Press announced it’s opening its own digital marketplace on Jan. 31 to sell NFTs of its photojournalism. We don’t know what will be included in the sale, but AP said in a news release there will be Pulitzer Prize-winning photos.
The NFTs will come with metadata of the time, date, location, equipment and technical settings used for the photo. AP previously sold “artistic representations” of some of its most famous photos last year as part of the NFT auction AP ARTiFACTS: The 175 Collection.
In other NFT news, Walmart has filed trademarks to offer its own virtual currency and NFTs.
And finally…
I was confused why Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin (R) wore a vest and boutonnière to his inauguration Saturday until I realized Virginia governors have been doing this for years? I haven’t been able to find answers about where this tradition comes from online yet and I’m still waiting on a call back from the UVA political science department, so if you know, please do drop a line. Thank you.