The Signale team of the Robert Koch Institute applies data science to infectious disease epidemiology, in particular the automated detection of possible outbreaks.
The dots in the logo invoke how infectious cases might be sporadic or related to one another, and have different characteristics (here the size). The overall pattern, the "S" standing for Signale, is recognized as an "S", the "signal" of a possible outbreak (in German, outbreak detection is called Ausbruchserkennung, litterally "recognition of outbreaks").
The logo is produced generatively in Processing 3 (the version 3.3.7 was used), reflecting the randomness of individual infections and the statistical nature of outbreaks. This was also a way to systematically and precisely explore different approaches. The final version is a combination of different outputs with the baseline "Signale" added manually.
Moreover, the same scripts can be used to generate patterns.
The idea was to use a different output each time that a website was loaded or a report generated, but we didn't yet come to it.
The final version as PDF is dots/signale-logo.pdf.
The logo and pattern chosen were produced as PDFs by signale_logo.pde. The class for two linked dots is defined in SmoothLink.pde.
The parameters used while generating a logo or pattern are written in a log. The ones used for the final logo (precisely: for the outputs that have been combined) can be found in dots/signale_logo-log-20180306135809.txt.
Further examples with the corresponding parameters (for almost all of them) can be found in dots/.
The specifications for the "Signale" baseline are: Barlow Semi Condensed, regular, 22 pts, caps approach 190, h75 mm baseline.
The scripts can be used to generate similarly any letter or text, or just patterns by leaving the parameter pattern_text empty.
During research we also explored using lines instead of dots with the script signale_logo_lines.pde. Here the idea was that outbreak detection is often based on time series analysis based on aggregated numbers from many different places or demographics, from which a pattern indicating a possible outbreak emerges.
Examples with the corresponding parameters can be found in lines/.
- Animate the logo, e.g. as SVG + CSS or JavaScript. Dots would grow in size, in place if isolated or move to their final places from one another if linked.
- Incorporate the baseline "Signale" in the Processing scripts.
- Make sure no lines are drawn in the PDF outputs (shapes of no thickness) and dots are not drawn on top of linked dots.
Conception, protyping, art direction: Alice Aubin
Conception, code: Stéphane Ghozzi
The code and output examples are made available under a CC0 licence, i.e. others may freely build upon, enhance and reuse the works for any purposes without restriction under copyright or database law. Please do not use the Signale logo without prior express consent.