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Breast Cancer Awareness Month goes Global
Every year Breast Cancer Awareness Month is celebrated, pinking up the entire month of October. The occasion has brought about massive attention and support, funding substantial gains in cancer research. More women than ever before are now going for breast cancer screenings, saving countless lives. Let’s find out just how this event has become su...
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Resources used for Breast Cancer Awareness Month
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Woman
Inspire the fight against breast cancer in high resolution with this highly encouraging and influential collection of inspirational women, giving your next campaign the voice it needs to motivate the masses against such a reckless illness.
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Mammogram
This life-saving machine is a vital step in diagnosing breast cancer, saving countless lives around the globe. Showcase the importance of this technology by applying mammogram images to your Breast Cancer Awareness Month campaign projects or anything medical for that matter.
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Breast Cancer
Help the brave pink warriors in their fight against breast cancer. This assortment of images contains pictures of pink ribbons, cancer survivors, or groups of women, among others. Create powerful presentations and raise awareness using these beautiful photographs.
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Science
Science is key in the fight against diseases like cancer. Choose any of these images related to science and use them for providing details of your research or to let other people know about your findings. They are also great for many other types of projects.
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Breast cancer logos
Set about applying an easily recognizable Breast Cancer Logo to your creative design projects. Each design is easily editable and will do well to suit your Breast Cancer campaigns with great success, creating striking designs that deliver the right message.
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Breast Cancer symbols
Instantly improve the visual aesthetics and communicative language of your Breast Cancer Awareness campaign using these editable and highly recognizable breast cancer symbols. Convey your message efficiently and with style.
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Breast Cancer backgrounds
Help spread awareness this Breast Cancer Month by utilizing a Breast Cancer background. These high quality images are valuable, encouraging and educating women everywhere to make that vital check and provide support for others.
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Breast Cancer clip art
Take a more lighthearted approach to tackling breast cancer using these delightful breast cancer clip art designs, using a mix of pastel colors and vector illustrations to help convey and spread awareness of this life-changing disease.
Symbols
Symbols that have given shape to Breast Cancer Awareness Month
Pink ribbon
Female breast
Female symbol
Boxing gloves
The Pink Ribbon that has wrapped itself around the world
The Breast Cancer Awareness Month Ribbon has become a globally recognized symbol that unites people around the world to stand against a potentially fatal disease, helping drive awareness in an awe-inspiring way. In its early stages, the symbol carried a more functional message, wearing the ribbon on your wrist likely meant you had aided the cause, participated in a charity run, or maybe even had the disease. Nowadays the Pink Ribbon has grown into a globally recognized icon that is instantly recognizable. It has one purpose. To spread awareness of Breast Cancer to every corner of the globe in an attempt to eradicate it in our lifetime. Such a symbol will be the main focus of your Breast Cancer Awareness creative projects. Let’s spread the Pink Ribbon.
The Female Breast, society moving forward
This symbol has played a decisive role in helping bring awareness to breast cancer, helping educate women to perform a self-diagnosis to search for lumps in the breast, displaying just how simple and easy it is to make the check. The simple action it invokes does so in a positive tone to influence viewers on their level, perhaps leading audiences to think about it subconsciously. Before Betty Ford broke the silence on the matter of Breast Cancer, such openness wasn’t heard of. However, today we see visual communication challenge the sexualisation of the female form using such icons and imagery to bring attention to the elephant in the room. Perhaps this symbol will help in creating a functional campaign, social media post, or make a feature on a website to help spread awareness by educating women and men about spotting cancer early on.
The Female symbol of Venus
The glyph of Venus, or the female symbol, originated from the time of the Greeks naming the symbol after Venus, the planet and goddess of love. The symbol itself is rumored to have represented Aphrodite’s hand mirror and has simplified over the centuries to what we have now, a hollow circle that sits on a cross. The symbol has become a powerful icon used to empower women. Therefore the use of this symbol for Breast Cancer Awareness Month is an obvious fit, seeking to unite women everywhere. Such a symbol will perform well in a Breast Cancer Awareness campaign, perhaps backed by strong female colors such as pink!
Stand up as a strong woman, wearing Boxing Gloves!
Take the fight to the disease! Boxing gloves are a glorious way to show how fierce and strong women can be. Don’t drop your guard. Boxing is a martial art that requires you to stand on your two feet and not turn you back on your enemy. It is the tone of voice we want to use when fighting Breast Cancer. The symbol provokes a ferocious stance to stand up, not just to the disease but the decades of speculation and taboo around the subject. Perhaps some strong pink boxing gloves would help deliver the message you want to convey in a poster, banner or social media post, connecting a knockout blow that will attract attention.
Breast Cancer Awareness Month Color Palette
Lavender Floral
As the name suggests, this pigment originates from the world-renowned Lavender. A wildflower that covers forest floors in the late spring with sometimes poetic results. This is certainly a color that suits very well, the reflection and vibe of Breast Cancer Awareness month providing purity, serenity, and grace to a cause that demands the right kind of attention. Such a deep color provides a strong presence in your creative designs, pulling in attention while doing so gently and with style. A practical color it may be, but don’t stop yourself from letting your hair down and seeing where this wonderful hue might take you.
How did Breast Cancer Awareness Month become Global?
Breast Cancer Awareness Month has become a huge event that takes place each year, involving hundreds of countries around the world. But it wasn’t too long ago that barely any efforts were made to create awareness of the disease, it was essentially a taboo subject! It’s crazy to think that a disease that kills over 2 million people a year was frowned upon, but it took a very special lady, some corporate bullying, and huge funding from cosmetic giants and pharmaceutical companies to make it what it is today. The story of Breast Cancer Awareness Month may sound more like a business strategy than a simple charity case. Let’s take a look at this fascinating timeline and learn just how this meaningful story unfolded.
1974
Betty Ford
First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer
In 1974 Betty Ford’s husband Gerald R. Ford took the oath and became president of the United States. The role of first lady had no job description, but your every move was scrutinized and for someone like Betty, it must have been a claustrophobic lifestyle at first. Later on, in 1974 Betty’s doctor discovered a lump in her breast. Back then when awareness was at a low point, nobody ever talked or even knew what it was, it was somewhat brushed under the carpet. However, Betty did want to talk about it, she made sure her experience was made public. Hours after the operation the White House made a press conference stating the operation was a major success, thanks to how early the cancer was detected. Weeks later Betty was recovering well, even throwing a football at her husband in a photograph. What came as a huge surprise was the massive support flooding in through the mail for Betty Ford, and further was the influx of women heading to the cancer screening clinics to get checked. It seemed as though she had become a voice for all women and that women had finally found her. She would go on to describe her experience in more depth in her 1978 memoir ‘Betty Ford: First Lady, Women’s Advocate, Survivor, Trailblazer.
1985
American Cancer Society
The first Breast Cancer Awareness campaign
Established in 1913, this remarkable group of volunteers made up the American Cancer Society, a force that existed to eradicate cancer and give people a chance to survive the disease. In October 1985, it partnered up with the pharmaceutical division of Imperial Chemical Industries, now known as AstraZeneca, to form the first organization to bring attention to breast cancer. The week-long event had Betty Ford’s support, who played a major role in talking about her own experiences. The campaign continued to roll out informative language, educating women and men about breast cancer, how to spot the signs, and promoted the use of mammogram screening tests, a machine built to find cancer cells in breast tissue. In addition to helping spread awareness, Breast Cancer Awareness Month would also call out for donations supporting breast cancer research. The money would go towards finding a cure and helping develop drugs to suppress the disease and give patients a better quality of life.
1993
The dawn of the Pink Ribbon
The big corporations muscling their way into charity on the world stage
The inspiration for the globally recognized Pink Ribbon evolved from the massive ribbon boom of 1992 the New York Times called The Year of The Ribbon. The Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation started giving out Pink Ribbons to every participant in New York’s running race event. However, the ribbon was a finer detail against the race itself and didn’t catch on. Alexandra Penney, the editor-in-chief of Self magazine at the time, and guest editor Evelyn Lauder saw the potential of the ribbon and sought to distribute the symbol through the use of giant cosmetic stores in New York City and other cosmetic stores across the country. However, it turned out there was a lady who had beaten them to it. Charlotte Haley, a lady who had suffered from tremendous loss to the disease was distributing batches of peach-colored ribbons handmade from her kitchen. Self magazine got in touch with Charlotte proposing to glorify her efforts. However, upon refusal, Self magazine and their lawyers simply took the ribbon concept and changed the color to pink! The Pink Ribbon is now the primary emblem of support.
2000
Global Illumination
October is the month the world is dressed in Pink!
With the backing of corporate giants, the Pink Ribbon had hit the international stage. In 2000 the fragrance and cosmetic company Estée Lauder Inc. launched Global Illumination, a powerful international campaign that involved illuminating some of the most recognized landmarks of the world in pink, such as the Tower of London, Niagara Falls, and Sydney Opera House. The event would even create a new entry into the Guinness World Records for Most Landmarks Illuminated for a Cause in 24 hours! This kind of attention ultimately provided Breast Cancer Awareness Month the world stage and with such success, the world has benefitted from more awareness of the disease, ultimately saving countless lives and giving women all around the world a voice to talk about an issue that was once a taboo subject.
