Picturing a thousand words; the Graphic Design of language in the 21st century

This past week, in my Graphic Design history class, we've been going over the creation and development of writing; from its inception all the way up to pretty much now. There's been a lot on type, movable type, characters, alphabets, and how they've changed, over the generations; mostly the evolution from pictograph to the modern abstract representation of sounds.

No doubt scholars, as well as my fellow class mates will go on about aspects of these changes. There'll be talk about Chinese calligraphy, spelling, the standardizing of presentation, and so forth. And these are all very noteworthy, sure. But me? Well, as always, I've sort have moved a little right field, again.

The humble, ancient beginnings of Amazon;
you know, before the internet.

You see, what I find most interesting about the written language - as a whole, at any rate - is how cyclical its progress has become. To get this, we need to go back to the beginning of the written word.



Bulgarian Magura cave painting, which may, or may not,
depict the world's first commuter report.

Writing is a convention of necessity. Back at the beginning - any random neolithic french cave, for example - the primitive act of artistic iconic expression... cave paintings... was good enough for the more simple concepts of nature, the hunt, and so on. It was a vocabulary that could reach just about anyone that saw it. Bison were bison, hunters were hunters, and so on. Rudimentary, sure; but very useful, and practical.

Of course, given time, family groups split, grow, spread, and settle. And, much like how these groups become larger hunting cooperatives, nomadic tribes, and take their first steps into becoming a village, the ideas and vocabulary they share grow with them. There's a need to keep records, divide up resources to meet needs, etc.

Hieroglyphic inscription reads; "there once was a pharoh
from Nepal who had only one hairy..." and the rest was
lost due to damage.

We can easily watch, as these groups separated and settled, how each region went about developing written communication. Ancient Egypt had two forms of writing; Hieroglyphs - for the regal, official stuff commemorating tombs and public works, and a more accessible style known as hieratic - equitable to a cursive style. In Asian cultures, pictograms slowly developed into the various forms of kanji we see, today. In fact, it's argued as much that just about the whole of all written language has risen from such origins.

Guess there's something to all the talk of derivative works, huh?

Hey, it's all Greek to me.

At any rate, the concept of written language took off. And boy did it. As villages took to towns, which grew into cities, then city-states, and off into sovereign countries, the written word became as unique and diverse as the separate cultures that created and used them.

But, for me, as a budding Graphic Designer, here's the kick...

Today the world has sort of run out of room. That is, we're becoming a giant global society. (I'm writing this for a Graphic Design class, not Social Science; I'm not going to get into all the political stuff, here.)  As cultures step all over each other, what with business, travel, and all that, there's been a growing need for a simple, universal, written vocabulary. Something that can tell anyone, anywhere everything from "this way to the men's room", "wash in cold", and "don't wizz on the electric rail".

Or, is that "don't touch the electric rail"; I'm always a little bit fuzzy on that one...

So, where do we, as a global society, turn?

Well, yes; sort of. But, more specifically... Which, I guess depends on how you look at it (Yep, full of puns, all the sudden.)... icons.

Even if you have no idea what the words are, I bet you know where to get some coffee.

In today's crashing cultural world - mostly found in the throws of Europe and Asia - signs have begun the shift from long, multi-language monstrosities to more iconic representational pictographs; a trend started some years back in the fashion world on the care tags.

So, what we have, now, is this fascinating trend where writing, to meet the challenges of breaking language barriers, has come full circle back to the earliest of days in its history - the pictograph - to convey basic instructions, alert, and inform. We're back on the cave wall; not because of a simple vocabulary, but to bridge an ever complex cacophony of rich ones.



You have no idea how confusing
this sign is in Scotland...

Ironic? Perhaps. Even if this is our best answer, though, it's by no means an easy one. After all, you still need to figure out what symbols get applied to what words, or actions, to say the most to the largest amount of people. And that looks like a job for a Graphic Designer!

A new world of talking pictures? Man, I love my work.