A picture speaks louder than words.

The above object claims the lives of an estimated 2 million people a year and has wrecked more global havoc than some wars: The Human Immunodeficiency Virus.

The above illustration won first place in the “Illustrations” category of the 2010 International Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge appearing in the18 February 2011, issue of Science, published by AAAS.

You would think that a guy would come up with something a little less hair-raising that this, but being that it’s one of the worst human killers there are, I get the point. One judge even said:

“You have this gaping mouth that almost looks like it’s ready to eat you the way AIDS is eating away at society.”

Oh yes it does. And the fact that you can visualize and see it gives you goose bumps. Doesn’t it make you want to eradicate it that much more?

An illustration for a business/institutional killer?

It got me wondering, if we were to create an illustration of the #1 company/institutional killer of all what would it be? What would it look like? How can me make it so visceral that simply showing it to business/government leaders would raise their hair and make them question what they’re doing.

Something so visual that it would make them go: “That’s what’s eating away at our organization? Let’s make sure it doesn’t eat us up.”

In other words, it makes them care. Can you imagine the look on their faces?

I’ve been dreaming of this myself 🙂

So, any ideas?

Related articles

• Illustrations of HIV, Quasars, and Fungi Win Science Visualization Challenge | 80beats (blogs.discovermagazine.com)