« The Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments | Main | New money for the UK »
May 24, 2008
Designing a new symbol
As new concepts enter the world, our language must change to keep pace. But language is more than just words, we also depend upon a rich, varied and subtle visual language...signs and symbols that speak to us throughout our day.
So where do new visual "words" come from? They must be invented of course, a task that usually falls to graphic designers. Here's an example... the English designers Jack Schulze and Matt Webb recently gave their design students the task of designing a symbol to represent the concept of commerce via RFID technology...using those little wand-like devices to make everyday purchases(*).
It's a subtle and complex topic to try to boil down into a simple gylph. One of the students' attempts is pictured above. Check out some other examples here.
You got a better design? Let's see it!
(*) And yes, I know that the use of RFID has been fraught with technical and personal freedom issues for years. I'm not saying it's a good idea, just that it's becoming a more widely used idea.
Posted by Chris Spurgeon at May 24, 2008 07:56 AM