National Park Service sample pictographs

A pictogram (also pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto) is a graphical

symbol A symbol is a mark, Sign (semiotics), sign, or word that indicates, signifies, or is understood as representing an idea, physical object, object, or wikt:relationship, relationship. Symbols allow people to go beyond what is known or seen by cr ...

that conveys meaning through its visual resemblance to a physical object. Pictograms are used in systems of writing and visual communication. A pictography is a

writing system A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a ''script'', as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independen ...

which uses pictograms. Some pictograms, such as hazard pictograms, may be elements of

formal languages In logic, mathematics, computer science, and linguistics, a formal language is a set of string (computer science), strings whose symbols are taken from a set called "#Definition, alphabet". The alphabet of a formal language consists of symbol ...

. In the field of

prehistoric art In the history of art, prehistoric art is all art produced in preliterate, Prehistory, prehistorical cultures beginning somewhere in very late geological history, and generally continuing until that culture either develops writing or other met ...

, the term "pictograph" has a different definition, and specifically refers to art painted on rock surfaces. Pictographs are contrasted with

petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

s, which are carved or incised. Small pictograms displayed on a

computer screen A computer monitor is an output device that displays information in pictorial or textual form. A discrete monitor comprises a visual display, support electronics, power supply, housing, electrical connectors, and external user controls. The ...

in order to help the user navigate are called ''

icons An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic, and Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, saints, and angels. Although especially ...

''.

Historical

Early written symbols were based on pictograms (pictures which resemble what they signify) and

ideograms An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek 'idea' + 'to write') is a symbol that is used within a given writing system to represent an idea or concept in a given language. (Ideograms are contrasted with phonograms, which indicate sounds of speech ...

(symbols which represent ideas). Ancient Sumerian, Egyptian, and Chinese civilizations began to adapt such symbols to represent concepts, developing them into

logographic writing systems In a written language, a logogram (from Ancient Greek 'word', and 'that which is drawn or written'), also logograph or lexigraph, is a written character that represents a semantic component of a language, such as a word or morpheme. Chinese ...

. Pictograms are still in use as the main medium of written communication in some non-literate cultures in Africa, the Americas, and Oceania. Pictograms are often used as simple, pictorial, representational symbols by most contemporary cultures. Pictograms can be considered an art form, or can be considered a written language and are designated as such in

Pre-Columbian art Pre-Columbian art refers to the Visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Americas, visual arts of indigenous peoples of the Caribbean, North America, North, Central America, Central, and South Americas from at least 13,000 BCE to the European con ...

Native American art The visual arts of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas encompasses the visual artistic practices of the Indigenous peoples of the Americas from ancient times to the present. These include works from South America and North America, which in ...

, Ancient

Mesopotamia Mesopotamia is a historical region of West Asia situated within the Tigris–Euphrates river system, in the northern part of the Fertile Crescent. Today, Mesopotamia is known as present-day Iraq and forms the eastern geographic boundary of ...

and

Painting in the Americas before Colonization Painting in the Americas before European colonization is the Precolumbian painting traditions of the Americas. Painting was a relatively widespread, popular and diverse means of communication and expression for both religious and utilitarian purp ...

. One example of many is the

Rock art of the Chumash people Chumash rock art is a genre of paintings on caves, mountains, cliffs, or other living rock surfaces, created by the Chumash people of Southern California. Pictographs and petroglyphs are common through interior California, the rock painting tradit ...

, part of the

Native American history of California Native may refer to: People * '' Jus sanguinis ( or , ), meaning 'right of blood', is a principle of nationality law by which nationality is determined or acquired by the nationality of one or both parents. Children at birth may be nation ...

. In 2011, UNESCO's World Heritage List added "

Petroglyph A petroglyph is an image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving, or abrading, as a form of rock art. Outside North America, scholars often use terms such as "carving", "engraving", or other descriptions ...

Complexes of the Mongolian Altai, Mongolia" to celebrate the importance of the pictograms engraved in rocks. Some scientists in the field of neuropsychiatry and neuropsychology, such as

Mario Christian Meyer Mario-Christian Meyer is a Swiss-Brazilian doctor and advocate for the sustainable development of the Amazonia and preservation of its indigenous cultural heritage. Early life Meyer was born in Salta, Argentina. His father, Hermann Meyer, a Swi ...

, are studying the symbolic meaning of indigenous pictographs and petroglyphs, aiming to create new ways of communication between native people and modern scientists to safeguard and valorize their cultural diversity. Agawa Rock, panel VIII.jpg,

Ojibwa The Ojibwe (; syll.: ᐅᒋᐺ; plural: ''Ojibweg'' ᐅᒋᐺᒃ) are an Anishinaabe people whose homeland (''Ojibwewaki'' ᐅᒋᐺᐘᑭ) covers much of the Great Lakes region and the northern plains, extending into the subarctic and thro ...

pictographs on cliff-face at Agawa Rock,

Lake Superior Provincial Park Lake Superior Provincial Park is one of the largest provincial parks in Ontario, covering about along the northeastern shores of Lake Superior between Sault Ste. Marie and Wawa in Algoma District in Northeastern Ontario, Canada. Ontario Highwa ...

of a boat and

Mishipeshu An underwater panther ( () or () ), is one of the most important of several mythical water beings among many Indigenous peoples of the Northeastern Woodlands and Great Lakes region, particularly among the Anishinaabe. translates into "the Grea ...

, an animal with horns, painted with red ochre Signatures from the Past.jpg, Several prehistoric engravings can be found around

La Silla Observatory La Silla Observatory is an astronomical observatory in Chile with three telescopes built and operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Several other telescopes are also located at the site and are partly maintained by ESO. The observato ...

. GreatGalleryedit.jpg, Native American pictographs from the Great Gallery, Horseshoe Canyon,

Canyonlands National Park Canyonlands National Park is a national park of the United States located in southeastern Utah near the town of Moab. The park preserves a colorful landscape eroded into numerous canyons, mesas, and buttes by the Colorado River, the Green Rive ...

Water,Rabbit,Deer.jpg, Water, rabbit, deer pictograms on a replica of an

Aztec The Aztecs ( ) were a Mesoamerican civilization that flourished in central Mexico in the Post-Classic stage, post-classic period from 1300 to 1521. The Aztec people included different Indigenous peoples of Mexico, ethnic groups of central ...

Stone of the Sun The Aztec sun stone () is a late post-classic Mexica sculpture housed in the Museo Nacional de Antropología, National Anthropology Museum in Mexico City, and is perhaps the most famous work of Aztecs#Sculpture, Mexica sculpture. It measures in ...

Modern uses

An early modern example of the extensive use of pictograms may be seen in the map in the London suburban timetables of the

London and North Eastern Railway The London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) was the second largest (after London, Midland and Scottish Railway, LMS) of the "Big Four (British railway companies), Big Four" railway companies created by the Railways Act 1921 in Britain. It ope ...

, 1936–1947, designed by

George Dow George Dow (30 June 1907 – 28 January 1987) was a British employee of the London and North Eastern Railway (LNER) and British Railways known for his public relations work and railway maps produced for his employers, and also a writer of railwa ...

, in which a variety of pictograms was used to indicate facilities available at or near each station. Pictograms remain in common use today, serving as pictorial, representational signs, instructions, or statistical diagrams. Because of their graphical nature and fairly realistic style, they are widely used to indicate public toilets, or places such as airports and train stations. Because they are a concise way to communicate a concept to people who speak many different languages, pictograms have also been used extensively at the

Olympics The modern Olympic Games (Olympics; ) are the world's preeminent international sporting events. They feature summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a variety of competit ...

since the 1964 summer games in Tokyo featured designs by . Later Olympic pictograms have been redesigned for each set of games. Pictographic writing as a modernist poetic technique is credited to

Ezra Pound Ezra Weston Loomis Pound (30 October 1885 – 1 November 1972) was an List of poets from the United States, American poet and critic, a major figure in the early modernist poetry movement, and a Collaboration with Nazi Germany and Fascist Ita ...

, though French

surrealists Surrealism is an art and cultural movement that developed in Europe in the aftermath of World War I in which artists aimed to allow the unconscious mind to express itself, often resulting in the depiction of illogical or dreamlike scenes and id ...

credit the

Pacific Northwest The Pacific Northwest (PNW; ) is a geographic region in Western North America bounded by its coastal waters of the Pacific Ocean to the west and, loosely, by the Rocky Mountains to the east. Though no official boundary exists, the most common ...

American Indians of

Alaska Alaska ( ) is a non-contiguous U.S. state on the northwest extremity of North America. Part of the Western United States region, it is one of the two non-contiguous U.S. states, alongside Hawaii. Alaska is also considered to be the north ...

who introduced writing, via

totem pole Totem poles () are monumental carvings found in western Canada and the northwestern United States. They are a type of Northwest Coast art, consisting of poles, posts or pillars, carved with symbols or figures. They are usually made from large t ...

s, to

North America North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere, Northern and Western Hemisphere, Western hemispheres. North America is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South Ameri ...

. Contemporary artist

Xu Bing Xu Bing (; born 1955) is a Chinese artist who served as vice-president of the Central Academy of Fine Arts. He is known for his printmaking skills and installation art, as well as his creative artistic use of language, words, and text and how ...

created Book from the Ground, a universal language made up of pictograms collected from around the world. A Book from the Ground chat program has been exhibited in museums and galleries internationally.

Emojis An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis; , ) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram, or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of modern emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typ ...

are a type of pictogram.

In mathematics

In statistics, pictograms are charts in which icons represent numbers to make it more interesting and easier to understand. A key is often included to indicate what each icon represents. All icons must be of the same size, but a fraction of an icon can be used to show the respective fraction of that amount.

Standardization

Pictograms can often transcend languages in that they can communicate to speakers of a number of tongues and language families equally effectively, even if the languages and cultures are completely different. This is why

road signs Traffic signs or road signs are signs erected at the side of or above roads to give instructions or provide information to road users. The earliest signs were simple wooden or stone milestones. Later, signs with directional arms were introduc ...

and similar pictographic material are often applied as global standards expected to be understood by nearly all. A standard set of pictograms was defined in the

international standard An international standard is a technical standard developed by one or more international standards organizations. International standards are available for consideration and use worldwide. The most prominent such organization is the International O ...

'' ISO 7001: Public Information Symbols''. Other common sets of pictographs are the laundry symbols used on clothing tags and the chemical hazard symbols as standardized by the GHS system. Pictograms have been popularized in use on the Internet and in

software Software consists of computer programs that instruct the Execution (computing), execution of a computer. Software also includes design documents and specifications. The history of software is closely tied to the development of digital comput ...

, better known as "

icon An icon () is a religious work of art, most commonly a painting, in the cultures of the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, Catholic Church, Catholic, and Lutheranism, Lutheran churches. The most common subjects include Jesus, Mary, mother of ...

s" displayed on a computer screen in order to help user navigate a computer system or mobile device. road-sign-horse.jpg, A pictographic traffic sign (top) warning motorists of horses and riders Railway pictograms.jpg,

British Rail British Railways (BR), which from 1965 traded as British Rail, was a state-owned company that operated most rail transport in Great Britain from 1948 to 1997. Originally a trading brand of the Railway Executive of the British Transport Comm ...

passenger safety pictograms at the end of the platform at Meols railway station Piktogramm Schwimmer an der Muenchner Olympia Schwimmhalle.JPG, This highly influential pictogram design was introduced at the

1972 Munich Olympics The 1972 Summer Olympics (), officially known as the Games of the XX Olympiad () and officially branded as Munich 1972 (; ), were an international multi-sport event held in Munich, West Germany, from 26 August to 11 September 1972. It was the ...

, although pictograms first began to appear in the games at Tokyo in 1964.

Notes

References

* Reed, Ishmael (2003). ''From Totems to Hip-Hop: A Multicultural Anthology of Poetry Across the Americas, 1900–2002'', Ishmael Reed, ed. .

External links

Pictogram & Communication: About 1,500 practical pictograms based on Design principles of pictorial symbols for communication support(JIS T 0103:2005)CAPL:The Culturally Authentic Pictorial Lexicon, photographic illustrations of objects for multiple languagesPictogram Encyclopedia, The collection site of more than 500 pictograms, Pictograms are categorized, and easy to find unique pictogramPictopen
- Modern Pictographic Writing
NounProject
- Free Pictograms under open licences
Modern Pictograms
- Explore word and pictogram relationships
Wolfram, Alpha
- Number to pictogram translator {{Authority control Infographics Rock art * Pre-Columbian art Indigenous art History of communication Proto-writing Statistical charts and diagrams