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Form & shape · Representation

Pictogram

Reduced, systematic signs.

A design choice in Stylogeny’s vocabulary, under form & shape: what is the shape language?

styles make it: 66
as a defining choice: 15
as a usual one: 19
now and then: 32
avoid it: 3

Styles defined by it 15

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.
Kamon (Japanese Family Crests)c. 1100–present · East AsiaJapan's family crests: small one-colour emblems that reduce a plant, animal, tool or pattern to a flat silhouette, mirrored or repeated around a centre, often ringed and drawn with compass and brush.
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.
Uli & Nsibidi Line and Sign Tradition1900–present · Sub-Saharan AfricaTwo linked graphic languages of southeastern Nigeria.
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.
Western Desert Iconography1971–present · OceaniaThe acrylic painting movement that took form at Papunya in 1971, when men there painted the Honey Ant Dreaming on the school wall and then on board, carrying an older practice of sand, body and ceremonial designs into lasting form. 'Western Desert' is an umbrella name: the movement also includes Warlpiri, Anmatyerre and Arrernte painters of the Central Desert.
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.
Techno-Futurist Graphics1986–2002 · Western Europe, East AsiaElectronic-music and video-game graphics of the late 1980s and 1990s that turned corporate modernism into a sci-fi consumer fantasy.
Emoji Pictographic Language1997–present · East Asia, Global / networkedPictographs typed as characters and set inline in running text.
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.
Palestinian Watermelon and Keffiyeh Graphics2021–present · Middle East & North Africa, Global / networkedGraphics of Palestinian identity and of solidarity with Palestinians, made by Palestinian artists, the diaspora and supporters worldwide and shared mainly online, above all since the Gaza war began in October 2023.

Styles that often use it 19

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

Styles that use it now and then 32

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.

Icons & pictogramsin 44 of 66
Modular gridin 32 of 66
Repetition & rhythmin 51 of 66
Emblems & badgesin 40 of 66
Geometric primitivesin 34 of 66
Rational & objectivein 22 of 66

Styles that avoid it

Styles that deliberately leave it out.

Other choices in form & shape