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Imagery · Systematic

Icons & pictograms

Systematic icon families.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under imagery: what kind of pictures, if any?

styles make it: 60
as a defining choice: 12
as a usual one: 22
now and then: 26
avoid it: 1

Styles defined by it 12

For these styles it is one of the choices that make the style.

Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphic & Register Compositionc. 0–394 · Middle East & North AfricaThe visual system of pharaonic Egypt, in which writing is made of pictures and pictures are ruled like writing.
Mixteca-Puebla Codex Paintingc. 1200–1560 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe painted screenfold books of Postclassic southern and central Mexico (not the Maya codices): long strips of gesso-coated deerskin, folded like a screen and painted on both sides.
Adinkra & Kente Symbol Systems1700–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaThe Akan textile languages of Ghana.
Isotype Pictorial Statistics1925–1971 · Central Europe, Western EuropeA method of visual education developed by Otto Neurath, Marie Neurath (Reidemeister) and Gerd Arntz in Red Vienna from 1925, which turns statistics into rows of identical pictograms where a greater quantity is shown by more signs, never by bigger ones.
British Road Signage (Kinneir & Calvert)1958–present · Western EuropeThe national sign system Jock Kinneir and Margaret Calvert designed for Britain's motorways, first used on the Preston By-pass in 1958, and through the Worboys Committee for all roads from 1 January 1965.
Mexico 68 Olympic & Metro Identity1966–1970 · Latin America & CaribbeanThe graphic programme of the 1968 Mexico City Olympics and the city's first Metro line.
Munich 1972 Olympic Design (Otl Aicher)1966–1972 · Central EuropeThe visual programme Otl Aicher's department made for the 1972 Munich Olympics, the 'cheerful Games' meant to show a democratic, modest West Germany.
Bitmap & Pixel Graphics1977–1995 · North America, East AsiaGraphics and lettering built from the square pixels of low-resolution screens (arcade and console sprites, home-computer displays and the first graphical user interfaces), where every dot was placed by hand within tight limits of memory, resolution and palette.
Emoji Pictographic Language1997–present · East Asia, Global / networkedPictographs typed as characters and set inline in running text.
Skeuomorphic UI2000–2013 · Global / networkedInterface design that imitates physical materials and objects (stitched leather, linen, wooden shelves, brushed aluminium, felt, paper and glass) so that digital tools look and behave like their real-world counterparts.
Flat Design2010–2016 · North America, Global / networkedAn interface and illustration language that stripped screens of simulated materials, replacing bevels, gloss and textures with solid fields of colour, clean sans-serif type and reduced pictograms.
Material Design2014–present · North America, Global / networkedGoogle's design system, launched in 2014, which reintroduced controlled depth to flat design through the metaphor of 'material': sheets of digital paper and ink that sit at defined elevations, cast consistent shadows and move with meaningful motion.

Styles that often use it 22

A characteristic choice: usual in these styles, though not essential.

Styles that use it now and then 26

An occasional choice in these styles.

It often goes with

Choices that the styles making it make more often than the atlas as a whole.

Pictogramin 44 of 60
Modular gridin 31 of 60
App & OS interfacein 23 of 60
Web & CSSin 24 of 60
Rational & objectivein 24 of 60
Grotesque & neo-grotesquein 29 of 60

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

GOV.UK Design (GDS Style)2012–present

Other choices in imagery