Another Dimension

When our publisher, Jay Berfas, first came to Pharm Exec, he brought with him a fat black portfolio. We all learned what was inside when Jay gathered the editorial team around a table and poured out three decades' worth of 3-D memorabilia—magazine covers, ads, photos, and dozens of pairs of red-and-blue glasses. It turned out that Jay was (and is) a 3-D fanatic, and had been trying for years to do a stereoscopic cover on one of his magazines. Now we were part of the dream.

Not long afterward, we were able to introduce Jay to a fellow 3-D nut, Craig Foster. We met Craig at a photo shoot for our annual Ad Stars feature. Craig was responsible for the artwork for one of our winners—a gorgeous, three-dimensional mailer for Avastin. Business cards were exchanged and e-mails started flying, and next thing we knew we'd entered a new dimension. We have to thank Craig for a lot of that speed, and for the remarkable quality of his work. You can check out a selection of his medical illustrations at http://fostermed.com/. (That's Craig, by the way, fourth from the left in the front row of the photo above. The rest of the folks in goofy glasses are the Pharm Exec team: Joanna Breitstein, Marylyn Donahue, Tony Gamino, Brittany Agro, me, Jay, Matthew Kalash, Walter Armstrong, Daisy Roman-Torres, George Koroneos, and Laurel Petty.)

For all the fun we had getting "50 Man" on the page, there's a serious issue lurking behind the idea. The whole point of 3-D is to get things to jump off the page. And that's a challenge we all face these days. In today's media-saturated world, it has never been easier to get information in front of an audience. But it has never been harder to get a message to actually have an impact on behavior.