Ben Gramann is a Designer at Fat Pencil Studio
With the advent of computers and cell phones, symbols & icons (emojis) have become a widely accepted means of communicating and revived the use of symbols as shortcuts to longer form writing. With the touch of a button, an idea can be summoned through a simple graphic.
At Fat Pencil Studio, we engage in visual storytelling. We routinely take in considerable amounts of written information and translate it into visual artifacts, which support a desired rhetoric. We are compelled to look beyond words to engage many audiences (including a judge, jurors, and many others involved in a case), to communicate ideas as clearly and effectively as possible. For example:
Visual communication tools have been used since humans first began leaving traces on cave walls. Icons & symbols are often used to communicate a concept or an idea. The form of a simple icon can conjure up powerful associations. Over time, the recognition of a symbol can strengthen the connection to its meaning. They show visual resemblance to an object or a function they represent. The most important benefit of the icon is its ability to replace text, as people perceive images much faster than words.
Ancient Symbols
Before written language, many ancient civilizations relied on their own system of symbols, icons, and pictograms to communicate narratives particular to their culture and time. Some are decipherable to this day thanks to a codex or set of rules which enable the interpreter to derive the intended meaning. Notable symbol systems include glyphs, which became the written medium in both Egyptian and Mayan cultures.
A collection of Signs for "female" and "water" in various symbol systems.
Top row: "Female" Venus sign, toilet pictogram, modern Chinese character 女, ancient form of Chinese character (apparent abstract drawing of kneeling woman), Ancient Egyptian hieroglyph ("B1" in Gardiner's sign list), late (1st millennium B.C.) form of Cuneiform sign
Bottom row: "Water".
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By 2650 BCE, Hieroglyphics were the formal writing system used in Ancient Egypt for writing the Egyptian language. Hieroglyphs combined logographic, syllabic and alphabetic elements, with some 1,000 distinct characters. Cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious literature on papyrus and wood.
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Maya script is the native writing system of the Maya civilization of Mesoamerica. The earliest inscriptions date to the 3rd century BCE, and were continuously used for approximately 2,000 years until the Spanish conquest between 16th and 17th centuries. Mayan glyphs used logograms complemented with a set of syllabic glyphs, similar in function to modern Japanese writing.
Symbol : Signifier <-> Signified
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857–1913) was a Swiss linguist, semiotician and philosopher, whose ideas laid a foundation for many significant developments in linguistics and semiotics in the 20th century.
In semiotioc terms, the Sign (smallest unit of meaning) is made up of a signifier (physical appearance of a sign: word, image or sound) and the signified (the concept that a signifier refers to)
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The diagram used on page 158 of Ferdinand de Saussure's Cours de linguistique générale (1916), illustrates the relationship between signified : concept (French: signifié) and signifier : sound-image (French: signifiant)
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Diagram showing the relationship between the "signifier" (sound/image) and the "signified"(Concept), as represented by the Symbol.
Symbol Signs: AIGA’S iconic transportation symbols
In 1974, Cook and Shanosky Associates Inc. were contracted by the American Institute for Graphic Arts (AIGA) to create an optimal set of navigation symbols for the Department of Transportation (DOT).
A series of 50 wayfinding symbols resulted from this collaboration. These symbols were generated mainly for use in transportation hubs and at international events, such as the Olympics.
The symbols were designed to reach a global audience, beyond language, age, culture, and gender. They represent basic functions, including identifying bathroom facilities, escalators, elevators and stairs, food, handicap ramps, exits & entrances and more.These signs are universally recognizable and form a basis for a strong visual language that has reached most of us in one form or another.
When it comes to classifying the types of icons, we take into consideration the following factors:
Recognizability: How easily do users recognize the icons and how literally or figuratively the icon depicts the function? This includes: universal icons, conflicting icons, unique icons, resemblance icons, reference icons, and arbitrary icons.
Visual Characteristics: How understandable, attractive and detailed in graphic elements is the icon? This includes: flat icons, skeuomorphic icons, glyph icons, duotone icons, colorful icons, and outlined icons.
Modern Symbols
In the ancient human cultures, most of the symbols used for communication dealt with the features of the natural world and our place within it (both physically and spiritually). Modern symbols are more complex in that they tell the story of organizations that are entirely constructed by humans, apart from the natural world. How many of the corporate symbols do you recognize?
The power of a symbol depends on it recognizability