The Art of Social Distancing - Imagery Made for the 2 Meter (6ft) Distance

If this page just looks like some blotches of black and a few white polka dots to you, you're not alone. At first glance, most people take one look at this full page of the May 6th edition of the Gifu Newspaper, and share that thought. But Japanese readers will tell you - at just the right distance, it's much more meaningful than some random black and white patterns.

Up close the meaning is obscured, but observe the newspaper from afar (ideally the 2+ meters or 6+ feet away necessary to avoid the spread of COVID-19), and the shapes resolve themselves into a few simple words of Japanese: even apart, our hearts are one (離れていても　心はひとつ). The design undeniably represents the message of social distancing - physically we might be far apart, but we're all in this together!

Interestingly, the artist behind this all isn't a professional designer at all, but a member of the newspaper's sales team, and the design itself was created in PowerPoint!