Through last week’s attempts, different cultural backgrounds are valid for different understandings of road signs, so we subjectively select symbols related to words and compare them. We wanted to see how our different positions affect our choice of images. We use the extended ISOTYPE file to select a symbol to mark the meaning of four words.
After the first week of exploration, we decided to focus our research and explore the feasibility and readability of a road sign system. We chose to use screen printing as a printing method in order to explore the multiple layers of meaning that coexist. We worked together to challenge three original logo designs and what they represent. Each new logo contains a different level of understanding in one view. All three were designed and printed together as a team.
The second work of our group project is to redesign the Stop road signs in the national languages of the team members. People with different mother tongues can instantly get text signals corresponding to the color. We also use color overlapping for screen printing. Our idea is to try to redesign road signs in a language-differentiated way. On the one hand, different colors also highlight the diversity of languages, and on the other hand, the same font size means that there is no hierarchy of language.
What have we learned?
Standardised symbols can affect our understanding of situations, society and hierarchy.
Reducing ideas to symbols (the simplification of ideas) can have a cost for society.
Systems such as the road signs and ISOTYPE are claiming to be intuitive and therefore multicultural, but we believe they are not.
I used to think that graphics can transcend language and convey information across language barriers. Therefore, the road signs of the international standard specification may be completely applicable to anyone and any situation. However, through this group project I found that the idea that graphics can ignore language barriers is one-sided. People in different countries have different understanding of graphics under different language backgrounds and national cultural backgrounds, so some road signs may have problems of identification obstacles or ambiguity.
Of course, there may be similarities in understanding in different cultural contexts, but there is also diversity.