Pictograms

by brucewilsondesign

When designing apps, a great place to start my research is by looking at pictograms.

A pictogram, is an symbol that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object or action. For example, an image man with a ball would be referring to football. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to a considerable extent pictorial in appearance.

Pictography is a form of writing which uses representational, pictorial drawings. It is hieroglyphic writing that also comes to mind when thinking about pictograms, which also uses drawings as letters or phrases.

I have picked out these pictograms are they are an example of some of the best that have ever been produced. The set on the left are the Tokyo 1964 series by Artistic director: Masaru Katzumie & Graphic designer: Yoshiro Yamashita. The set on the right are Otl Aicher’s from Munich 1972.

Otl Aicher’s olympic pictograms are one of the cultural mile-stones in the field of visual communication, the design was so successful that it articulated to multi-lingual and mutli-cultural audiences which had never been done so well before. The pictogram system which was devised by Aicher and his team for the games was the perfect example of simplistic information design and has now become the universal standard.

They will defiantly be a great source of inspiration for my own app designs, making it clear to me that the simpler the better. Overcomplicating the designs is something that I must not let happen.