Five Pixelated Images

1-Nigel Bailey,2-David Walsh,3-Desiree Deklerk,4-Nathan Scoular,5-Andrew Barum

In this exercise, I could learn the fact that not many visual elements are needed to make an image recognisable. For instance, I made a pixelated image of David which is consisted of huge pixels. This is difficult to figure out who it is when it's big  but it's easier to figure out when the image become smaller. These big pixels are breaking up the shape of his face but at the same time it gives enough colour information of the face.

Road signs

I found this exercise really difficult, It was a challenge that put information of each signs  into limited colour and shape, especially signs like Red Light District and Gold Digger are the hardest one. Because the signs are not normally represented as a sign and meanings they have are a little bit ambiguous.

So in this exercise I tried to find  minimal symbols which can effectively represent each sign than transform as a pictogram image. because I thought using a simple image is  more clear to identify signs rather than make it complicate.For instance Fashion shop and Red Light District signs, I chose sunglasses and women's leg in net stroking respectively.

Tangram

Tulip

A bearded man

  

A running man

Pelican

Truck

This exercise was a quite fun and reminded me memory of my childhood. Things that I realised during this task was we can present a various sort of characters and shapes with a limited range of triangles and rectangle. Like the face that I made is not just a normal face it has bread ,wearing a cap with a funny facial expression.

Humpty Dumpty

To be frank I had no idea what Humpty Dumpty was before I watched a movie clip for children on Youtube. After the exercise I was pretty Impressed by the fact that we can actually create a story with symbols in many other different ways of approach.

Five symbols that changed their meanings

Thumbs Up

The thumbs up sign is most commonly thought to descend from gladiatorial contests in which the audience determined whether the combatant was eligible to live or die by a thumbs up/ thumbs down vote. But at this time the thumbs up sign indicates divers meanings like when people ask to someone whether a job is going well or not,  showing his/her thumbs up is present positive reaction. Also when people praise someone, and the sign includes meaning of 'you are the best' as well.  As a result the meaning of thumps up sign has been expanded as a sign stand for affirmative reaction which is being used world-wide.

Salute

The military salute is traditionally performed by touching the eyebrow with four fingers together. Roman soldiers are thought to have initiated the procedure as a sign of shielding their eyes from the great light of their superior officers. Knights may have used it to raise their helmets as an indication that they did not intend to fight. This theory is supported by the fact that the helmet on a suit of armor is called a “sallet,” very close to the word “salute.” 

In my opinion, performing the military salute makes soldiers feel a sense of belonging in one group and also work as an identifier. Therefore it strengthens the unity of troops so it is may assumed that uses of performing salute was changed and used intentionally dislike other symbols.

Peace Symbol

The peace symbol is one of the most widely known symbol in the world, in Britain it was designed as standing for nuclear disarmament and in particular as the logo of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) but  In the United States and much of the rest of the world it is known more broadly as the peace symbol.

Pigeon

Pigeon is an animal that widely known as a symbol of peace but its meaning has been changed recently. By increasing the number of pigeon in urban area, their droppings are cause of few problems. Their high acid droppings damage buildings and vehicles also pollute the public area. In addition it contains a virus that provoking cause of meningitis  to human.  For these reasons above many cities struggle to reduce their number and announced a pigeon as a harmful animal to human and allow people to kill pigeon.

Mobile Phone

In the early 90's when the mobile phone first came out it was a prestige address because of its enormous expense of maintenance and also the fact that it represented high-technology of the age. Then time went by, development of technology helped to reduce its production cost and became more common.

It lost its symbolic meaning of the time it emerged but new meaning has been imparted to the mobile phone by Improvement of IT technology, sales strategy of multinational corporation companies and popularisation of the internet. At this present a smart phone carries out a variety functions and being presented as an icon of information age. 

This process has been occurred within about 10years, now a mobile phone is a symbol of communication. I personally think that as a designer we always should be prepared in ear of rapid technological change.

Tribe symbol