Core Concepts- Exercise 8: Signs and symbols
Exercise 8: Sign and symbols
In this exercise you will read existing signs, symbols and images, and then drawing on their visual language create your own symbols. Choose one of the following concepts: Danger, Movement, Love, Here
I began this task by researching signs, symbols and icons. There are many symbols that’s meanings are unanimous across the world, whether it’s a brand’s logo (such as apple) or a love heart. I came across a blog here titled: World’s Most Famous Symbols And Their Unknown Stories which was an interesting read.
How the symbols of the two ‘main’ American political parties (Democrats and Republicans) was the most interesting for me: “In 1828, when the war hero Andrew Jackson was running for president, his opponents started calling him a ‘Jackass’, in what they thought must have been a clever play on his last name. However, Jackson was too much for them to handle. As a master of turning things into his favor, Mr. Jackson wholly embraced the donkey as his political symbol and started printing it on his campaign posters.
Thomas Nast, who was with the popular magazine Harper’s Weekly at the time, started depicting the donkey in his cartoons as a representation of the whole of the Democratic Party. And thus, the Democratic Donkey was born.
Nast’s creation of the Republican elephant was more gradual, however. He first used an oafish elephant to depict the party as a confused and huge being that wasn’t sure which way to go (or which policies to adopt) in his popular Third-Term Panic cartoon. In the ensuing years, he used the confused and huge elephant multiple times to portray the Republican Party, and soon the popular association was established.”
This showed to me that time, and repetition of the symbol are key factors to them becoming recognised. Simplicity is another factor, the simple, clear silhouettes of these animals is an already familiar image with people and is therefore more memorable.
I looked around me for symbols/icons that I see daily. The main ones being iphone apps! The camera, messaging and phone icons are clear, simple and well known icons, despite the fact that they vary slightly depending on phone brand, they are basically the same and recognised by everyone. Again I feel like it’s their simplicity that makes them so affective, as phone being the call icon, the speech bubble being the message and the camera being the camera!
There were also many brand icons that are so embedded in culture that they are almost background noise. These being nike, with their brilliant and simple swoosh, coca cola with the red and white icon and as mentioned before, apple with their simple and sleek logo.
Road/warning signs are other examples of symbols we see and understand everyday. Road signs are also simple as they need to be, people can’t be confused or staring at a signpost whilst they drive. Their colours are easy to view and follow.
I went onto creating some mind maps for each of the words, including brief ideas, colours, other meanings and associated imagery. I found that danger and love could have some crossing imagery and colours. Red being positive and negative depending on the imagery it’s paired with, and a cross either positive love/follow for religion, or related to death, heaven etc. The colouring of the other words could also be red. ‘Movement’ for example a speedometer usually has a red tip, or could be shown as a red light on a traffic light to show to ‘stop'.’ ‘Here’ could be a pin as commonly seen on google maps which is red.
‘Movement’ which I didn’t initially think of, may be interpreted not as physical movement (a fire exit sign), but a political or social movement. A political symbol or social symbol, such as the black lives matter fist has been around since the mid 60s when the black panther party were founded and the meaning of it is known by everybody when it is seen now. This symbol is so simple yet loaded with meaning representing black liberation. A simple illustration of a fist is clean, easy to view and can be reproduced physically by raising your fist in the air. Similarly, ‘danger’ can be symbolised by a hand action. You can raise your hands in front of you to represent ‘stop’ or that there is potential danger. This is another symbol that is unanimous throughout the world, and transcends any language barriers or cultural differences. This displays to me that in order for something to be easily understood by many and be an effective sign/symbol it must be simple, whether thats simple imagery, type or clear colours that represent the meaning of the sign/symbol.
I decided to continue with the theme ‘danger.’ I went onto researching signs/symbols that show danger that are seen all the time, and their meanings are unanimous throughout most places in the world.
I found this website which has a great account on the history and reasons for danger signs.
“Civilisations have always found ways to communicate pictorially, especially when language was in its infancy, such as drawings and paintings on the walls of caves, hieroglyphic inscriptions on tombs in ancient Egypt and runic symbols. In fact, it could be said we are returning to our pictorial roots when we use emojis and other icons in electronic messages.
In terms of how signage has developed, the emergency exit green running person is a good example, as it’s a relatively recent development, first appearing in the 1980s. A skull and crossbones, on the other hand, has been a symbol for poison for more than 1,000 years, while signage relating to danger was first introduced in the early 19th century.”
The colours/shapes were also listed clearly, which I found very interesting considering the reasonings/semiotics for the particular colours/shapes used in these signs. They are easy to understand, and just naturally accepted/not thought about by everyone. How does a visual be so well made/functional it almost becomes a normal part of society?
Shapes:
Triangle: Warning
Square: Usually provides safety information
Circle: Prohibits certain actions if red, gives mandatory information if blue
Colours:
Danger: Red, sometimes orange
Potential hazard, so take care: Yellow
Vital information, so pay attention: Blue
Safe to proceed, all systems go: Green
I sketched some initial ideas out. I wanted to create a simple but interesting symbol to present ‘danger'.’ I feel like the use of a skull is an unanimous symbol for danger and I should begin to experiment with this. Here I wondered what colours I should go for, red was my initial thought, but what about yellow/black, or orange?
I looked through various books/magazines for potential imagery I could use to develop this symbol and found a few good photos. I went into Photoshop to test and develop my ideas.
I continued to test ideas, shapes and composition in Photoshop, and added some colour. I tested between yellow, red and orange; which I feel are all colours that represent danger, as also shown by researching danger signs. I wanted the symbol to look interesting, yet be clear in it’s meaning. I wanted to continue to test with screen printing and kept this in mind when designing, so I tested with different halftones too.
I went onto testing physically with a collage style approach. I printed the 2 images onto paper a few times, cut them out and began to test.
I had many issues when screen printing this image as I am new to screen printing. I initially had issues with exposure times, then wattage of bulbs, then when I thought I’d got there, I had scratched my screen! Finally, I got a print I was quite happy with. For future printing I will make a board with clamps to hold the screen in position to make the process more precise.
I quite liked some of these outcomes, in particular the one where the top of the woman’s head is ripped off and the skull is shown. I feel like these darker images are obvious symbols of danger and are simple enough to be affective. I scanned in the images and worked on their compositions in Photoshop to see which looked best.
I decided to finalise and screen print one of my earlier digital ideas.
Final:
I decided to go down a more abstract route with this exercise and wanted to include screen printing, I am unsure if this was the correct route to take but I feel like I benefited from it. It allowed me to practise screen printing and develop my research skills/application of research to present meaning.
I feel like my final symbol does represent danger quite well, but is not very practical. I feel like the imagery and colours work well but this could not be used as an actual sign due to its message not being clear or concise enough, it may work better with the imagery on a plain background or shape as I had researched, such as a triangle. In future tasks perhaps I should focus more on the application and function of the work.
Overall I am not very pleased with the aesthetic outcome of my work, but it was good to try. The line down the middle separating the 2 images doesn’t work as well as I had hoped, keeping time in mind and the amount it took to create the screen prints it wouldn’t be a good use to try it again. I look forward to producing more screen prints in the future.
