“My design endeavoured to capture the balletic subaqueous frond-like gestural mimetics of the physician’s digitus secundus in that moment of intense focus before it penetrated its target of a latent girdling of constraint with a determined persistence like a wood-boring beetle patiently devouring the earth-coloured timbers of an ancient sunken vessel,” said graphic designer Magyt Hejstynz, as he clarified his approach to an invitation from Steam Donkey Mugs to produce a discrete aide-memoire for would-be doctors and nurses in the digital medical world.
The mug-maker’s brief related to the digital rectal examination (DRE) or, as the ancient Romans called it, the palpatio per anum – a fundamentally simple physical examination involving the lubricated finger of a medical professional. The practitioner inserts a finger into the rectum (a patient’s) and then feels around in search of abnormalities. Trainee medics are warned that if they don’t put their finger in it, they might end up putting their foot in it!
“If a young doctor looks at my mug and thinks ‘anus’ I will feel myself satisfied,” said Hejstynz.
When he’s not in his studio, the designer frequently appears on Margate Sands with A Packet of Minstrels, performing their re-enactment of the famous sixteenth-century historical event when a courtier disgraced himself by farting in front of Queen Elizabeth (who should, of course, have been allowed to go first).