I’ve seen these all over Europe. Some have simple images of the cross flashing, some have windows screensaver esque animations, and some have 3d renders of various things rotating in all sorts of ways. Why is that? Wouldn’t a simple green cross be enough to get the point across, or do they need to be overly verbose? Here’s the full video instead of a gif
Ok, so this might be an americanism, but the green cross says “cannabis dispensary” to me. At least around me, the medical marijuana industry is somewhat separated from the medical industry, and dispensaries are entirely different establishments from pharmacies. Pharmacies (and other medical establishments) use different symbols. If they were to use a cross to indicate a medical establishment, the red cross would be recognizable as a generalized symbol, but apparently it’s heavily protected by the Red Cross.
But that’s just my context, so I don’t have much of an answer beyond “this is what it means 'round these parts”
Edit: added info from below
To add to this, the US already has a universal symbol for pharmacies. It’s a capital R with the slanted leg extended past the bottom of the R and crossed to make a X.
℞
And the barber shop!
$ < medicine
This fucked me up big time my first trip which was way before it was so common in the States
It is universal in France. Sometimes you can stand in the street and see four or five flashing away in your view. I kinda like them, don’t have them in my country.
Here’s the best video I’ve seen: https://youtu.be/xeN4A_Pr2SU
This brought me joy today, thanks for sharing
There are some that flash super bright, and super fast, in winter, when driving home in the dark, it feels like I’m on the verge of an epileptic fit, must be a nightmare for those who have to live with that shining in through their windows.
Because they are cool, that’s why.
Yo! I’ve been wondering the same thing! I saw those all over Greece and they’re wild. Thought they were like cannabis shops or something lol.
It’s not enough that they’re cross. They want you to be cross too!
Never seen anything like this in Turkey. We have a simple red on white “E” (first letter of Eczane=Pharmacy) with maybe very timid color change animations, time and/or temperature switches.
As others have pointed out, these look like quite the distracting and cyberpunk dystopian ad signs, most unexpected for a core health institution.
I’ve seen them in southern Europe on vacation, but never in the Nordics. Allways thought it was a Iberian/Latin thing (FR, ES, IT, PT). Guess they are more common than I thought.
They’re slowing creeping in here in Denmark.
There is one around the corner from where I live. It doesn’t display anything but time and temperature (yet), but every time I walk past I secretly hope they’ve fired up the rave machine.
Can confirm that Norway does not have those signs
“annoying” is the “made you look” of advertising.
That’s fucking annoying to look at.
Because they’re easy to recognize and consistent? It’s honestly more weird that other areas of the world haven’t followed suit.
Could you elaborate on “all over Europe”? We don’t have those in Sweden, it looks very very tacky.
In how many countries have you seen these?
I’ve seen them in Denmark, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Greece, France (where this particular sign was filmed), Poland, Italy, Spain. That’s all I could remember from the trips I’ve been on in Europe.
NGL those countries seem like they would.
I saw a lot of those in Tenerife and it felt really weird. That is completely absent where I live.
Might just be a UK tbh, never seen this before
It’s a mainland Europe thing.
