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
I mean, the lit-up signs are for visibility. In some countries pharmacies are assigned strict working hours by the government, so it’s useful to see at a glance if a pharmacy is currently open without having to walk right up to the door (and night shifts may require ringing a bell in some of them, so that’s also helpful to convey that they are in fact open).
The fancy animations are just because when signs went from neon-lit to LEDs it turned out not all pharmacists have good design sensibilities. At least as far as I can tell.
This. The big green cross had the purpose of helping people locate open pharmacies, so they already were a sort of advertisement, in a tangential way… when technology allowed for flasher ones, most businesses went for it, because why not.
Here in Portugal, most display useful info like date, time, outside temperature (with varying degrees of accuracy), as well as services provided by the pharmacy or some general (often season specific) health recommendation.
The use of a bright green sign is, of course, to seek attention, but it’s also useful to quickly spot an open place at night, when most are closed and only a few remain opened longer in each town/city neighborhood (called “farmácias de serviço”, i.e something like “pharmacies in service”; they usually rotate between themselves each week). Nowadays you can check which places are available at night through a nice website, but the signs remain a useful thing, nonetheless.
The animations are just a culture thing now, I’d guess. Different pharmacies employ different animations, some wackier, some less, though there are very common animations for sure, such as the one where a 3D cross is animated rotating on multiple axis at the same time, making a nice spin back to its original position.
Why? I dunno, they break up the usual info display and help grab attention? I dunno, you get used to it and it mostly gets filtered into the background heheHere in Portugal, most display useful info like date, time, outside temperature (with varying degrees of accuracy),
We have ones like this in the states too. My favorite near me is at a church. It cycles between temp and date, but the display has too few characters, so instead of just being two screens, date then temp, it’s 3 - day and month, a second screen that just says “/24” and then the temp.
Cool! Thought they weren’t common across the Atlantic.
They’re more seen at older businesses that have been there forever. Newer ones get newer signs, with more flashy displays.
I’ve seen a colour one like the one I posted below here in Portugal. It really is not an institutionalised thing, it’s just what the owner decides how wacky their place is gonna be.
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
The red cross symbol is actually not a generalized symbol and use of it is heavily controlled by the American Red Cross non-profit. There is a history of lawsuits against video games for using the red cross on medkits without permission. If a pharmacy in the US uses it, they no doubt had to seek approval.
There’s a “removed Geneva convention violation” patch note in an early update of Stardew Valley for exactly this reason.
Ahh, that’s genuinely interesting, thanks!
So is this not for a cannabis dispensary?
That’s definitely part of my blind spot here. I don’t know of anywhere that uses a green cross for something other than a dispensary, but I also don’t know a lot of things , sooo¯\_(ツ)_/¯
The green cross is the universal symbol for pharmacies in Southern Europe. Admittedly I haven’t checked if any of them do have cannabis, but I’d recommend not asking pharmacists whether they got it. As others mentioned, the red cross wouldn’t be used as that would be a Geneva conventions violation.
Indeed, the green cross is the symbol for pharmacies here in Spain and in most places I’ve been (including a bit of northern europe).
None of them sell cannabis. If legal to sell, it needs to be sold in separate stores, which usually don’t have flashing signs. Those stores can’t use the green cross as a symbol.
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
lmao never seen such peculiar animations over here, that’s crazy
The video is sped up quite a bit, but I’ve definitely seen them before in Portugal.
Damn, in what region? Never spotted anything like that!
Lisboa. I don’t remember where but it was around the city.
This brought me joy today, thanks for sharing
Some epilepsy patients might get a seizure.
Profit for the pharmacy /s
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.
Also very common in South America.
They don’t exist in Germany.
Never seen in Switzerland too.
Can’t really contribute as in Germany most pharmacy signs are pretty static and look kind of like this: https://cdn.pixabay.com/photo/2014/06/30/20/59/pharmacy-380780_640.jpg
But I also wonder why there’s so many pharmacies in France. In almost any city I’ve been to it’s hard to not have a green flashing cross in sight.
But I also wonder why there’s so many pharmacies in France. In almost any city I’ve been to it’s hard to not have a green flashing cross in sight.
French pharmacies cannot open where they want, there is a limit in how many pharmacy a city can have, on the flip coin, it means that they are relatively evenly spread out across the country, and that even in the so called empty diagonal you`ll find a pharmacy.
Physician do not have this restriction, so many of them go to either Paris or the French riviera, while in rural area in the Northern half, you struggle to find a doctor.
The French are huge fans of medicine.
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.
You’re missing out, those are the tamer ones these days. https://youtu.be/x6Alv2Z347c?si=c_a2IkCBLB4AL4zo
A compilation in reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/musichaiku/comments/153qvqo/pharmacies_in_europe_and_their_rave_signs/
In my country, flashing lights for stores are outright banned, because it might trigger epilepsy seizures. Seeing a pharmacy out of all places using it feels very weird.
That’s what I thought too. But lo and behold
LMAO the part where it just starts displaying a bunch of pills flying at the screen
There’s a guy who bought 3 of this and set them as the lights for a rave at a venue, was pretty funny
Also now that I think of it, has anyone played bad apple on one of those?
Haven’t seen it done, but it’s just a matter of time
Hahaha I’ve seen some of those animations in their natural habitats
No one has hacked them to run porn on yet?
Demosceners are paving the way: https://youtu.be/Ea7pn92W-Kg
I love it.
Doom?
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.
Can confirm that in Portugal, pretty much every single pharmacy has one of these, with varying degrees of wacky 2D/3D animations and info display.
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
It’s not enough that they’re cross. They want you to be cross too!
Maybe some of Europe’s surfeit of demo coders had to make their money somehow, and one of them persuaded a pharmacy that paying them to make them a sign with graphics that spin in eyecatching ways would be a good idea, and the rest was history?
Ha ha. Demo scene coders in the wild.
2kb apoteke demo comp 2024!
Hahahaha imagine if someone got doom running on one of those signs
I’m about 101% sure it’s possible, ±1.1%
They don’t even need to persuade individual pharmacies. In my country, there is a trade organization of pharmacies that self-regulates the industry and decides, among other things, on the short list of companies whose crosses are allowed to be installed. There are only 6 so getting on that list will give anyone a huge number of orders.
That could be what happened, but at a factory. I’ve noticed that a lot of them have similar graphics, so it might be a preset added in by the manufacturer.
“annoying” is the “made you look” of advertising.
