October is Breast Cancer Awareness Month in the United States, and many sites across the internet, especially concentrated within the blogosphere, have redesigned their layouts in pink monochrome to promote awareness of this disease.
Breast cancer is the most common and second-most fatal cancer among females, effecting one in nine females who reach age 90. In America, 211,000 women are diagnosed with breast cancer each year, and there are an average of 43,300 female fatalities attributed to breast cancer annually. Despite this alarming statistic, the five-year survival rate of females who have detected breast cancer early surpasses 95%.
Many companies and organizations are doing their part this October to promote awareness of this fatal disease. For years, activism in this arena involved wearing a pink ribbon and distributing literature to any curious schmuck who inquired. Thankfully, the internet has become a great front for this cause as well.
The National Breast Cancer Foundation has for many years distributed literature and pink ribbons to schools and colleges across the nation, and now maintains a website full of useful information to help educate visitors.
The Breast Cancer Site was founded by activists Tim Kunin and Greg Hesterberg and its mission is to help offer free mammograms to women in need. They accomplish this goal with the help of an advertising program, through which users click on a series of advertisements. The money raised through the pay-per-click campaign is directly donated to a foundation that makes free mammograms possible.
In possibly the widest-reaching effort this October, Matthew Oliphant has started Pink for October, an initiative that asks webmasters from far and wide to redesign their sites in pink monochrome. So far, hundreds of sites have donned the redesign in support of this cause, sometimes featuring informative blurbs to raise awareness, and at very least containing links to online informative resources.
The idea behind this primarily viral campaign is that when visitors click on a “why is this site pink?” link, they will be directed to Breast Cancer Awareness informational resources. Through this campaign, Oliphant, of popular blog Usability Works fame, hopes to raise awareness for not only the disease itself, but also for its victims and survivors. He has invited visitors of Pink for October to share their stories so that others may begin to see how this far-reaching disease is likely to effect their own lives.
Pink for October also offers downloadable banners and buttons that webmasters are urged to place on their site with a backlink to help promote the cause as well. So if you aren’t yet convinced enough, or if a redesign would prove to be too difficult, these images range from 20 x 20 pixels to 250 x 250 pixels, so you’re sure to find one that will fit quite nicely within your site’s design.
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Jim is a designer and a staff writer for murdok. He is also the editor of the FlashNewz newsletter.
