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

    • Ziggurat@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • neidu2@feddit.nl
    0·
    1 year ago

    Must be a continental thing. Here in noggieland we have a simple illuminated green cross.

  • FalseMyrmidon@kbin.run
    0·
    1 year ago

    I don’t think we have those in the US at all.

    Anyways it’s probably like that because it’s eye-catching. Eg it’s an ad

    • yngmnwntr@lemmy.ml
      0·
      1 year ago

      Depends where you’re at in the US. In oregon this symbol is used for cannabis dispensaries, meaning it is extremely common.

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space
    0·
    1 year ago

    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?

    • Sparky@lemmy.blahaj.zoneOP
      0·
      1 year ago

      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.

    • ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.orgEnglish
      0·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • twinnie@feddit.uk
    0·
    1 year ago

    Loads in Morocco as well, they have loads of pharmacies due to all the French influence.

  • tmpod@lemmy.ptM
    0·
    1 year ago

    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 hehe

    • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
      0·
      1 year ago

      Here 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.

        • Ookami38@sh.itjust.works
          0·
          1 year ago

          They’re more seen at older businesses that have been there forever. Newer ones get newer signs, with more flashy displays.

    • AdNecrias@lemmy.pt
      0·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • franglais@lemm.ee
    0·
    1 year ago

    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.

  • MudMan@fedia.io
    0·
    1 year ago

    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.

    • Damage@feddit.it
      0·
      1 year ago

      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.

  • n0x0n@feddit.orgDeutsch
    0·
    1 year ago

    Never seen something like this and I wonder if it wouldn’t trigger epilepsy in some people…