Customise pictograms for a specific purpose

In the previous sections, this research has discussed about the history of pictogram and identified its benefit as the sign in all aspects of life and also research language track for the potential of pictograms replacing linguistic function to cultivate and facilitate understanding. Besides what has mentioned, there were also some projects, which were meant to customise pictograms in assisting those under privilege users that were similar to the use of new medicinal label design to facilitate general public in understand the medical instructions.

According to Edo Smithshuijzen, in the recent years, there was a pictographic sign system called ‘Blissymbolics’ which consist of two thousand signs that were applied in the Ontario Crippled Children’s Centre, Australia to aid diagnosis, therapy and medical instructions for its patient (2007, p.328).

Austrian graphic designer, Lois Lanier created a system called COMPIC, which consisted of one thousand six hundred signs that aims to assist in communication with Children who have physical and mental difficulties.

Peter Houts developed a series of simple drawings that help to communicate with his predominantly AIDS and cancer patients (2007, p.328).

Some of these projects have since been developed to be an augmentative communication resource, which both adults and children can use in a various settings to assist in overcoming literacy difficulties. The pictogram helps to bridge the gap where communication is not occurring. 

One of the good example for the used of pictograms in communicating the functions and usage of the medicine locally is the traditional ointment - Singapore Hong Wei Chong dragon gold standard active oil (龙虎活络油品). It has a long history for its traditional Chinese medicine ointment specialises in relieve pain and alleviate muscle for traumatic bleeding, rheumatism, bruises and swelling. There are a few images on its traditional packaging in full color illustrating the functions of the ointment for older generation, there are similar used of illustration in a modern style to others newer brand Chinese ointment like tiger palm as well. This clearly shown that pictograms have empathetic qualities for creating an atmosphere of mood, where figurative images will stick more easily in the human memory especially work well for elderly. In fact, pictorial representation may enhance recollection of verbal information has long been known in design and communication industry, however there are still much work to be done on pictograms to be incorporated onto medicinal label design to understand how exactly it may work in the local context. 

Tracking of pictorial language

Actually the first picture language - Isotype (International System of Typographic) was founded and developed by Austrian sociologist Otto Neurath (1882 – 1945) in 1936, a main function of Isotype was to transform a complex source of information into a self-explanatory chart in addition making them visually attractive and memorable.

According to Edo Smithshuijzen: Otto Neurath invented the famous Isotype pictorial system that has proved to be internationally usable. In one of his book titled The Language of a Global Polis, he displayed his global understanding of the unification between culture and linguistic. Neurath established his view towards the modern metropolis by using visual media to create pictorial statistics. (2007, p.324).

Many of Neurath’s works demonstrate the extraordinary reach of his historical, scientific and geographical awareness and knowledge, as well as his confidence and ambition in the use of Isotype charts to convey this information. A series of three books for children eventually published in 1948, titled 'Visual history of mankind', the books explained the rationale behind this innovative approach to teaching history. The use of questions it proposes would encourage children to engage with the content of charts. The charts themselves would be designed according to Isotype principles: purposeful use of color; use of comparison; making sure that the most important things could be seen at first glance, with more detail being evident on closer scrutiny; and the consistent use of pictorial symbols. (Isotype revisited, 2009)

This marked the beginning of graphic revolution in applying pictogram interdisciplinary. Neurath's "international picture language" laid the foundation for international graphic symbols, i.e. for the pictographic signals of airport, train-station, and highway signs. Today, the use of graphics at the human-computer interface further demonstrates the power of pictographic communication.

Pictograms Metamorphosis of Language

Roland Barthes (1915 – 1980) a French semiotician, whose work stands unrivalled in many respects in providing insights into all aspects of social and cultural life as semiotically organised, had developed the notion of the motivated sign. He stated in his article ‘Myth today’: What is a characteristic of myth? It is to transform a meaning into forms. In other words, myth is a language-robbery.

He also states that: Myth is a type of speech. Speech of this kind is a message. It is therefore by no means confined to oral speech. It can consist of modes of writing or of representations; not only written discourse, but also photography, cinema, reporting, sport, shows, publicity, all these can serve as a support to mythical speech. Myth can be defined neither by its object nor by its material, for any material can arbitrarily be endowed with meaning. (Annette Lavers, 1984).

Human have constantly attempted at a theoretical unification of the different modes of representations. Much effort has been put into research and experimentation to documenting observations drawn from the responses. From the early day Garrick Mallery’s book titled Picture Writing of the American Indians to recent year Milton Glaser’s ‘I love NY’ logo, many visual representations marked the evolutionary track of language.

Laymen may ask if there is but a sign language, universally understood, the answer is ‘no’. But we are closer to the ultimate unification with mutual agreement in the use of signs through these research and experimentation. One of the most recent break-through was the development of ‘picture language’.   

A conference paper published from NPO Pangaea, which is a non-profit organization located in Japan, during 2006 Computer Supported Cooperative Work conference at Alberta, Canada. An observation made through a play between 10 – 14 year-old Japanese and Korean children, where there was a blank sheet of canvas prepared for them and observation done through, firstly: how children substitute words by pictograms and does pictograms have an alternative function? Secondly: do children use it to symbolize the exact meaning what they want to convey or include their emotions as well even if the ultimate presentation becomes ambiguous?

Some of the interesting sentences were constructed, for example ‘Why are Korean’s teeth beautiful?’ and even long sentences like ‘I went to my grandparents’ house and did the bubble. It was pleasant.’ The conclusion drawn was pictograms were alternatively exchanged for vocabulary words and used as rough concept to a message. In other words, even if the meaning of a pictogram was not clear, children replaced pictograms to creates parts of pictures and tell the remaining stories. There was a clear message that children were able to used pictographs in various ways. Indeed, it is great potential in the used of pictograms in replacing language.

In a research paper written by Kazunari Ito, a Ph.D. Degree student in Computer Science from Keio University in 2005, where he had developed a prototype to automate conversion of language to a pictogram representation in computer. The users just have to key in a group of computer-generated command to convert a simple English or Japanese sentence into pictograms representation, be it in still or animated form. A user need to push the button ‘register’ after punching in a simple command like: ‘I walked to hospital from school’. The conversion from text to pictogram has made possible to facilitate people with problems in understanding words for example people diagnosed with Dyslexia. Once again this has proved that pictogram is possible to be developed into more comprehensible and fully proficient in taking centre stage in the communication process in future.

The use of pictograms across all professions

One possible reason why pictograms remain relatively elusive in the domain of pictorial production and comprehension is due to the fact that pictograms are particularly complex sign systems. Following the dictum that pictures are worth a thousand words, pictograms typically contained multiple layers of meanings that co-exist simultaneously merely on the two-dimensional visual, whether it was on signage, banners, directional booths, stickers or computers screen. All these layers are capable of being presented all at once.

In the 2009 International Conference on Biometrics and Kansei Engineering held in Cieszyn, Poland, pictogram as a main element to support interactive on verbal communication was discussed, where a concept of "Pict-script" was introduced.

Makiko Okita, Yuuki Nakaura, Hidetsugu Suto states: Pict-script is a language using pictograms. It is high flexibility and can be used for not only consecutive expressions but also diagrammatic expressions. It is usable by not only people with disabilities but also people in general. It can be used for various styles of communication. Besides, Its output can indicate the user’s feelings. It promotes communication, where a picture that is not necessarily corresponding only to a word (IEEE Computer Society)

In the book titled: Language in the legal process, Janet Cotterill states:

In a case involving non-English speaking farm worker injured by pesticides, the court observed that the label was in English only and lacked ‘skull and bones, or other comparable symbols or hieroglyphics.’ Moreover, governmental regulations sometimes encourage or require the use of certain symbols. Thus, federal law requires products with a certain percentage of benzene to display a skull and cross bones symbol (2002, p.60)

Pictograms serve as the channel of communication across all aspects of life, certain standardization help people get used to the images and gradually learn their precise meaning. Indeed pictograms have the advantage of crossing cultural, even geographic boundaries, striving to be universally applicable, considering it is one of the most common pictorial representations that every human may encounter.

In the earlier section, this research discussed that humans communicate through visuals instinctively. Pictograms play a significant role in social-cognitive development. At the core of social-cognitive development in general, there is the propensity to reproduce actions and their effects, whether by imitation, action exploration, or observational learning (Laura L. Namy, 2005). Pictograms development is inseparable from a fundamental need for human to communicate, and ultimately to maintain social proximity with others. From a broader perspective, pictogram development as a subset of social cognitive development, pictograms serve as communicative means to a social end across all professions.

History of pictograms and its development

In general, from the earliest Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese characters to Olympic games symbols and today’s many road signs and computer icons, pictograms have been used as a tool for communication. For many years, humans have been using pictograms to make symbolism for religions, maps, texts, numeric, codes, emblems, markings and signings. It is not difficult for Internet users to notice the common use of graphic interface on virtual desktop, pictograms in representing folders, documents, grabbing hands, trash bin, etc, are all the pictorial language found in the computer system universally.  

Excitingly, in this technologically-savvy age, even the worldwide use of email has generated a new form of small icon made with punctuation marks, called ‘emoticons’, that are used to add an expressive tone of voice to the written information, this shown how much a person desired to express through a visual mean.

However, over the years, many attempts have been made to create legible pictograms that could be used for general purposes, such as a replacement for alphabetic signs and a universal pictorial language. Some of the limitations of pictograms become clearer through many past-recorded experiments. Firstly, not everyone understands what a pictogram represents and many viewers may not understand the content of the pictograms. Secondly, there will always be space limitation of the graphic representation of pictogram. For instance, there is no picture that could unquestionably express the word ‘exit’, for an exit door looks like any other door. 

The good news is - simple pictorial images have found a secure place next to written verbal language (Edo, 2007). For instance, the illustration of a male and female on the signage means ‘wash room’ or ‘toilet’, the illustration of a burger and drink with a bard cut across diagonally signifies ‘no food’ and also, a figure in a sitting position on top of a circle symbolized ‘for handicapped’ to the general public. Many pictograms have become familiar to most of us, which can be used without restriction. In fact, it brings an instant understanding to audience in most cases.

  Pictograms have been capitalised in many other professional countenances. In many industries, there is constant need to create abbreviation for terminology that they often use, undesirably creating barriers between the informed and the laymen. Hereafter, some abbreviations can be replaced by pictograms. A wide range of pictograms has been implemented in various professions, which include: road signs for public transportation managed by Land Transport Authority, Singapore, Singapore Mass Rapid Transit (SMRT) and airport, public institutions like Singapore National Parks  and others expert services like biomedical, legal and even politics.