Design Principles
Visual Literacy, Symbology - Fire exit - 4/11/14
In this session we discussed our interpretation of symbols and how these can be distinguished from icons. We were then given a quick hour long brief to investigate this further in which we had to redesign the fire exit sign which is an example of a particularly effective symbol in communicating its message.
As a group we distinguished that there is a fine line between a symbol and an icon. A symbol generally represents an object in a fairly abstract from where an icon tends to be a more literal representation of the object. Icons are found most typically in smartphones and other digital platforms however the main difference is that icons only represent the physical form and tend not to represent complex issues such as concepts or emotions. Symbols have an international acceptance therefore are much more widely recognised wheres icons can be more limited and specific to places.
We started the brief by researching the design of the current fire exit sign, it was designed by Yukio Ota. We initially created a mind map and started to sketch some initial design that we could then work on developing as a group. We considered the connotations of fire and smoke within the design and wanted it to practical and easily understandable.
In this session we discussed our interpretation of symbols and how these can be distinguished from icons. We were then given a quick hour long brief to investigate this further in which we had to redesign the fire exit sign which is an example of a particularly effective symbol in communicating its message.
As a group we distinguished that there is a fine line between a symbol and an icon. A symbol generally represents an object in a fairly abstract from where an icon tends to be a more literal representation of the object. Icons are found most typically in smartphones and other digital platforms however the main difference is that icons only represent the physical form and tend not to represent complex issues such as concepts or emotions. Symbols have an international acceptance therefore are much more widely recognised wheres icons can be more limited and specific to places.
We started the brief by researching the design of the current fire exit sign, it was designed by Yukio Ota. We initially created a mind map and started to sketch some initial design that we could then work on developing as a group. We considered the connotations of fire and smoke within the design and wanted it to practical and easily understandable.
We then started developing our ideas into more sophisticated concepts. We played with the notion of direction we felt this was the more important symbol we needed to convey as people would above all else want to know how to escape the fire. We experimented a lot with arrows as we felt this was a universal symbol that everyone could understand irrespective of language, range and age.
We created two variations for our final designs the first was purely pictorial as we felt this would be appropriate due to its international appeal. We used simple bold symbols to convey our message working in a linear process of 'fire' 'arrow' 'door' being interpreted as if you see fire make your way to the exit. I feel this design works well due to its simplicity but would develop the fire symbol further rot make it more iconic. Our second alternative used the word exit with an arrow placed over the 'i' this would be placed above doors so that it represented to leave through the exit.
I think our design were successful in using symbols to communicate our message but at the end of the session was introduced to the notion that the existing sign worked efficiently and had no major design floors that warranted a re-design. This is something I will consider in future briefs to identify a direct problem to solve to ensure my design is effective.
No comments:
Post a Comment