Pictograms
Iconic Japanese Designs 30 July - 9 November
An exhibition at Japan House
High Street Kensington admission free
Japan House opened in 2018 as a venue to share and celebrate Japanese culture and design. And what could be more Japanese than the pictogram - a suite of graphic symbols that convey meaning through symbolic representation? The latest exhibition celebrates their use but also aims to educate and foster a deeper understanding of graphic design, and is described as a masterclass in the simplicity of communicating without words. It's been set up in the basement so be aware the lift's currently not working, and it's a shame they wrote the 'Lift not in use' sign in words rather than displaying the message as a pictogram.
My first thought on entering the clinical white space was 'hell yes, I have not wasted my time by coming here', and this was still my opinion on departing. The room contains clearly laid-out thematic displays, several animated projections and a particularly arresting space featuring giant black pictograms. It manages to be both the perfect selfie-backdrop and also fulsomely educational throughout, and I hope you won't mind if I focus on the latter.
Pictorial communication plainly isn't new, it's classically Egyptian and also long used by the dynastic Chinese. I'm not sure it's strictly true that the 1964 Olympic Games first launched pictograms on an unsuspecting world, but the set of 20 minimalist silhouette designs conjured up by Katsumi Masaru and Yoshiro Yamashita to guide visiting spectators to the correct sporting venue certainly made a lasting impact. Also it's a shame they went to all the effort of redesigning them again for the 2020 Games and thanks to the pandemic hardly any foreigners turned up.
One brilliant thing is how the same pictogram can convey the same meaning all across the world. The ubiquitous pictogram for 'emergency exit', for example, was created by Japanese designer Ota Yukio in 1979 and later adopted as part of ISO 7010, a global technical standard for graphical hazard symbols. As for emoji, these first emerged in 1999 in response to limited character availability on the Japanese mobile internet service Docomo. The first set contained just 176 emoji, each restricted to 12×12 pixels, and included twelve zodiac signs, five red hearts, two feline faces, a cutlery set and a rocking horse.
Like road signs, the great British contribution to symbolic design, pictograms are often built up from smaller recognisable components. These include the inevitable triangles and circles, but also sets of symbolic curves representing puffs of air, rippled water and rising heat. Also have you ever considered the extensive testing that goes into perfecting the meaning of a pictogram, with trial and error used to refine the composition until a harmonious outcome is achieved? When you only have a 40×40 grid to play with, and the outer two squares are needed for padding, every pixel counts.
What precisely would best depict an apple, for example, to ensure understanding across all boundaries and cultures? Should icons be depicted from the front, the side or looking down from on top, and all because the essence of a 3D object has to be condensed into a recognisable 2D representation? And if it's movement you're depicting, which part should be the snapshot you use? Looking at a silhouette walking, for example, it soon becomes clear that only one properly captures the intended motion.
The detail you can wangle into a teensy pictogram is incredible, especially where nuanced differentiation is required. The exhibition depicts ten different types of Japanese noodle dish, for example, with variations defined by wiggles in the ramen, different bowls, resized piles and the use of a fork instead of chopsticks as the method of consumption. Alongside is an more technical example using bullet-headed Shinkansen, with each of 11 types of train differentiated by tweaks to a nosecone, swoosh or tiny window.
The exhibition ends with a do-it-yourself section. A bunch of London schoolchildren were asked to design their own pictograms on a square grid, and the professionally-tweaked results clearly resemble Tower Bridge, a wrap of fish and chips, a cargo bike and the intimate emotion 'I love my dog'. There's also a lightbox where you can shuffle shapes to make your own pictogram designs. I quickly knocked up the silhouette below to represent 'diamond geezer', although I confess to relying heavily on a shape the gallery assistants had laid out in advance and I am by no means that rotund in real life.
The exhibition website urges you to book in advance to guarantee entrance, although turning up on a weekday morning I laughed at the very suggestion. Queueing might conceivably be an issue at the weekend but as far as I can tell no slots are booked out and the recommended visiting time of 40 minutes seems somewhat on the optimistic side. Upstairs at Japan House is lovely too with gorgeous designed objects for sale, a tourist information corner and a matcha counter. No need to surge, the exhibition's on until November, but ➨ 🇯🇵🏠︎ 🕙︎-🕗︎ 🔍︎ 👍︎☺
