Requests Bluelight drug icons project - community input wanted!

Tronica

Tronica

Executive Director
Staff member
Joined
Mar 12, 2002
Messages
4,396
Hello everyone!

EDIT 21 June 2023: We have prototypes of the 20 icons. We would love your input. At this stage please comment on how they can be improved, especially whether or not they don't match up with what's actually happening. Input by June 30 would be great! Here's the link you can comment on.

EDIT 4th May 2023: So, we are at the point of having the final 20 ideas with some left over for round 2 later (so if you come up with more ideas, please add to the comments and we will incorporate into next round). First off, I will be advising designers of the actual types of images we want to have depicted in the first instance. Once that process is complete, I'll offer prototypes to you all to check out and critique, so we can make them look as excellent as we can, as well as have them accurately depicting each thing based from your first-hand experiences. So, stay tuned everyone and thanks again. :)

ORIGINAL TEXT BELOW
As part of our rebranding project, we are going to create a set of drug-related icons. We would then use these in our branding across the site and our other communities, alongside a new logo.
The logo will represent dialogue whereas the multiple icons will represent the many varied drug topics that we discuss.
While the logo will no longer contain the capsule, rest assured that one of the drug icons will be a capsule - the capsule will live on! But this way, the wide diversity of drug types and topics will be displayed - to show the diversity and variety of Bluelight's scope.

We'd love to get all our community's input into this process.
First we need to decide on 20 different icons - and what they will depict. (Note, I reckon we will have more than 20 good ideas, and we can save those that don't make the first 20 for another round of icons, perhaps in 2024).
Once we've decided on the 20 icons we want to create, our branding agency will create a set of prototypes and provide them back to us for comment.
We can then comment on how to improve them, and then settle on the final set of icons.

Then, the plan is to make the icon set available via creative commons licence for anyone to use, with attribute to Bluelight.org. We hope this will be a neat way of spreading the word about Bluelight to anyone who creates digital content related to drugs that might benefit from using the icons for their own projects, and their audiences.

So, how can you help?

Here's a basic list with some definites as well as some holes we will need to fill.
Broadly I have imagined we would have icons covering drug forms, drug routes of admin, harm reduction and recovery. But this is just an idea, open to critique. we could also change the ratio between the four categories of course. I also haven't covered any legal drugs, e.g. alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes in this set... might not be space for these? but open to ideas on that too if folks think they should be included.
Please comment below with your ideas and I'll update the list and hopefully we will then get to a final 20 concepts before going to create the icons!

1. [form] Capsule (generic)
2. [form] Illicit tablet (e.g. 'ecstasy' pill)
3. [form] Ziplock bag of powder (generic, could be cocaine, heroin, speed, etc)
4. [form] Cannabis leaf
5. [form] LSD blotter
6. [form] Pharma pills (e.g. looks like generic medicine, rather than illicit tablet - something like a xanax bar?)
extra icon ideas - other pharm pills - for round 2)
7. [form] nitrous cannisters
8. [form] mushrooms
9. [route of admin] syringe and injecting equipment
10. [roa] snorting lines of powder
11. [roa] glass pipe e.g. for meth/crack
12. [roa] bong / water pipe
13. [roa] vape
Additional ideas for next time - [roa] plugging (note, extra roas - edible & sublingual)
14. [hr technique] reagent test kit
15. [hr technique] wheel filter
16. [hr technique] naloxone
17. [hr technique] scales
18. [recovery related] support - two people embracing
19. [recovery related] a person waking up to a sunrise
20. [recovery related] sobriety chip

Please do be critical. We want these to represent things people actually do in 2023. Some of these might not be relevant to you or your networks - if so it would be good to get that critique and perhaps information about alternatives we can depict that do resonate with your experiences. It's fine if we end up with a list of 30-40, as we can use the leftover ideas for round 2 :)

Note: the image chosen here is a selection of drug icons made by Alpár-Etele Méder (https://www.iconfinder.com/search?designer=pocike&q=drug) available through a creative commons license.

Edit July 2023 - Round 2 ideas are placed below for when we do a second round of icon codesign:
- routes of admin - plugging (anal administration)
- routes of admin - edibles and sublinguals
- drug type - cactus / mescaline
- drug type - alcohol / drinking (e.g. beer bottle + wine glass)
- drug type - GHB (including syringe without injecting tip for safer dosing)
- drug type - steroids and other imaging enhancing drugs
- routes of admin - steroid injecting equipment
- police or law book representing 'the law'
- chemsex icon, e.g. could include GHB fishy, pipe (meth), bottle amyl and a condom
- a glbtiq+ icon possibly?
- drug type - DMT
- route of admin - dab rig for cannabis concentrates
 
Last edited:
Tronica said:
6. [form] Pharma pills (e.g. looks like generic medicine, rather than illicit tablet)
Click to expand...
Not sure what [form] represents but for benzodiazepines I think a sharp xanax bar would get the attention and represent benzos as these are known world-wide and for decades to be the "gold standard" of benzos for most - I believe.
Just a thought.
Tired and bout to close shop for the night been a long one but will come back to this.
Peace
 
Lil'LinaptkSix said:
Not sure what [form] represents but for benzodiazepines I think a sharp xanax bar would get the attention and represent benzos as these are known world-wide and for decades to be the "gold standard" of benzos for most - I believe.
Click to expand...

Form meaning the physical form the drug can take, that’s my understanding at least. Xanax bar shape for benzos is a fantastic suggestion.

As for suggestions maybe something that is HR related yet applies to a bunch of drugs, like scales?
 
An absolutely awesome idea. Here is the except. If it isn’t from a legal market, then it could be anything.

So as long as the icons are merely suggestive and not an identifier it’s ok. Canadian provinces have some sort of ‘standardized’ drug symbolism,but it’s each province making up their own symbology. The only national symbol that has any kind of significance is the following;

9F5dpTUm.jpg


The government resisted using other symbols. So an official/legal Cannabis product has this symbol and a provincial/territorial tax stamp. But the down side of this ‘official’ symbolism is that most if not all black market Cannabis products have this THC symbol on a packaged product. Vapes have the sticker. Tubed pre-rolls same thing. It’s really confusing in Canada b/c it is legal to send up to 1 oz Cannabis through the mail. Canada Post has no policy.

I’ll help of I can.

Tom
 
Tronica said:
Hello everyone!

As part of our rebranding project, we are going to create a set of drug-related icons. We would then use these in our branding across the site and our other communities, alongside a new logo.
The logo will represent dialogue whereas the multiple icons will represent the many varied drug topics that we discuss.
While the logo will no longer contain the capsule, rest assured that one of the drug icons will be a capsule - the capsule will live on! But this way, the wide diversity of drug types and topics will be displayed - to show the diversity and variety of Bluelight's scope.

We'd love to get all our community's input into this process.
First we need to decide on 20 different icons - and what they will depict. (Note, I reckon we will have more than 20 good ideas, and we can save those that don't make the first 20 for another round of icons, perhaps in 2024).
Once we've decided on the 20 icons we want to create, our branding agency will create a set of prototypes and provide them back to us for comment.
We can then comment on how to improve them, and then settle on the final set of icons.

Then, the plan is to make the icon set available via creative commons licence for anyone to use, with attribute to Bluelight.org. We hope this will be a neat way of spreading the word about Bluelight to anyone who creates digital content related to drugs that might benefit from using the icons for their own projects, and their audiences.

So, how can you help?

Here's a basic list with some definites as well as some holes we will need to fill.
Broadly I have imagined we would have icons covering drug forms, drug routes of admin, harm reduction and recovery. But this is just an idea, open to critique. we could also change the ratio between the four categories of course. I also haven't covered any legal drugs, e.g. alcohol, caffeine, cigarettes in this set... might not be space for these? but open to ideas on that too if folks think they should be included.
Please comment below with your ideas and I'll update the list and hopefully we will then get to a final 20 concepts before going to create the icons!

1. [form] Capsule (generic)
2. [form] Illicit tablet (e.g. 'ecstasy' pill)
3. [form] Ziplock bag of powder (generic, could be cocaine, heroin, speed, etc)
4. [form] Cannabis leaf
5. [form] LSD blotter
6. [form] Pharma pills (e.g. looks like generic medicine, rather than illicit tablet - something like a xanax bar?)
7. [form]
8. [form]
9. [route of admin] syringe
10. [roa] snorting lines of powder
11. [roa] glass pipe e.g. for meth/crack
12. [roa] bong / water pipe
13. [roa] vape
14. [roa]
15. [hr technique] reagent test kit
16. [hr technique] wheel filter
17. [hr technique] naloxone
18. [hr technique] scales
19. [recovery related]
20. [recovery related]

Please do be critical. We want these to represent things people actually do in 2023. Some of these might not be relevant to you or your networks - if so it would be good to get that critique and perhaps information about alternatives we can depict that do resonate with your experiences. It's fine if we end up with a list of 30-40, as we can use the leftover ideas for round 2 :)

Note: the image chosen here is a selection of drug icons made by Alpár-Etele Méder (https://www.iconfinder.com/search?designer=pocike&q=drug) available through a creative commons license.
Click to expand...
Fabulous idea and the icon set you've linked looks really nice too.
For Buprenorphine/Suboxone, I think it would be easily identifiable if we used a single, round, orange pill.
 
1. [form] Capsule (generic)
2. [form] Illicit tablet (e.g. 'ecstasy' pill)
3. [form] Ziplock bag of powder (generic, could be cocaine, heroin, speed, etc)
4. [form] Cannabis leaf
5. [form] LSD blotter
6. [form] Pharma pills (e.g. looks like generic medicine, rather than illicit tablet - something like a xanax bar?)
7. [form] Psychedelic
tenor.gif
amethyst-deceiver-mushrooms.jpg

8. [form]
9. [route of admin] syringe
10. [roa] snorting lines of powder
11. [roa] glass pipe e.g. for meth/crack
12. [roa] bong / water pipe
13. [roa] vape
14. [roa] Edible
gummy-bear-on-a-white-background.jpg

15. [hr technique] reagent test kit
16. [hr technique] wheel filter
17. [hr technique] naloxone
18. [hr technique] scales
19. [recovery related] Rehab
south-park-s02e04c12-off-to-rehab-4x3.jpg

20. [recovery related]
 
Psilanaut said:
Fabulous idea and the icon set you've linked looks really nice too.
For Buprenorphine/Suboxone, I think it would be easily identifiable if we used a single, round, orange pill.
Click to expand...
Thanks. It's tricky as we won't necessarily have the exact drug type but rather the form. Although maybe we can design a generic but easily identifiable version of a couple of common pharma drugs, as mentioned above with Xanax bars and by yourself with Bupe.
 
Chuff said:
1. [form] Capsule (generic)
2. [form] Illicit tablet (e.g. 'ecstasy' pill)
3. [form] Ziplock bag of powder (generic, could be cocaine, heroin, speed, etc)
4. [form] Cannabis leaf
5. [form] LSD blotter
6. [form] Pharma pills (e.g. looks like generic medicine, rather than illicit tablet - something like a xanax bar?)
7. [form] Psychedelic
tenor.gif
amethyst-deceiver-mushrooms.jpg

8. [form]
9. [route of admin] syringe
10. [roa] snorting lines of powder
11. [roa] glass pipe e.g. for meth/crack
12. [roa] bong / water pipe
13. [roa] vape
14. [roa] Edible
gummy-bear-on-a-white-background.jpg

15. [hr technique] reagent test kit
16. [hr technique] wheel filter
17. [hr technique] naloxone
18. [hr technique] scales
19. [recovery related] Rehab
south-park-s02e04c12-off-to-rehab-4x3.jpg

20. [recovery related]
Click to expand...

Ha, thanks.
I do wonder exactly how an icon can represent rehab, though, without the southpark ref!
 
Woo thanks everyone, I've updated the list and we now have no holes in it, and some extra ideas.

But please continue to comment and we can refine the list - if there are more ideas, we can save them for a round 2 icons later.
 
So, we are at the point of having the final 20 ideas with some left over for round 2 later (so if you come up with more ideas, please add to the comments and we will incorporate into next round). First off, I will be advising designers of the actual types of images we want to have depicted in the first instance. Once that process is complete, I'll offer prototypes to you all to check out and critique, so we can make them look as excellent as we can, as well as have them accurately depicting each thing based from your first-hand experiences. So, stay tuned everyone and thanks again. :)
 
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