A worker
On my way to work, looking down, I saw this manhole with a pictogram which was designed in sort of a “socialist-era” style. I assume the creator of this piece was slightly influenced by the Otto Neurath and his Isotype.
Since I’m mentioning Otto Neurath, I recently got a book called: From hieroglyphs to Isotype and I think it’s a must have book for any iconography designer or icon enthusiast.
Credit Card Reader
It appears as a tiny detail on a credit card reader, which is more than welcome (due to usability). But I don’t think we’re fully (yet) familiar with credit cards in this kind of
appearance.
In the beginning, magnetic stripe was the only storage medium to carry data on your credit card. With the invention of the smart card in 1982 the new era of payment began. In 1993 Mastercard, Visa and Europay agreed to work together and develop specifications for a smart card (debit/credit card). A stable release was out in 1998 and specifications upgrades followed in 2001 and 2004.
Since credit cards now contain both mediums for storing data and the magnetic stripe is in the game way longer than the chip (smart card), I think that the transition of visual associations and metaphorical resemblance should not surpass common use.
This is why I made a second version of it. And I know it would require hardware changes of the credit card reader to fit the purpose.
Bus station
This is one of the many standardized signage pictograms. But because of it’s “safe” appearance I thought it was more widely used, at least in Europe. I guess I was wrong, and this (signage used in Spain, and there are plenty more different variations on the internet) is what I found while I was digging around ISO web site and looking for related standards.
All and all, I really like it. Purely symmetrical.
Download pictogram
Book
This used to be a logo of a book store. Nicely executed with highly recognizable visual form.
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Fax Machine
Nowadays you barely see anyone exposing their fax machine number, more than that, you barely see anyone using fax machine pictograms. But still, they lay around us and I was lucky enough to witness one.
Beside the photo there is my redrawn version of this pictogram with a slightly modified version of it’s upper section. I thought that paper shouldn’t be connected to the machine in such direct way but be a part of it and in a more recognizable form.
Download pictograms
