The Societal Role and Design of Pictograms as "Kansei Language" (Perceptual Language)

It has been mentioned earlier that the viewer exercises volition in interpreting a pictogram. It is also playing a vital role today by serving as the guide through systems and technologies that have turned into black boxes. However, pictogram can change into a tool of self-control or regulatory action, rather than liberation of self, through design and application and transition in coordinates from user-driven to management-driven activity. Such changes seen in road signs are examined in the last part of this paper. Europe in the previous century faced problems of education in different language signs that grew alongside motorization. In the 1949 UN conference in Geneva, agreement was reached to adopt and promote road signs in pictograms with circular, triangular and quadrilateral frames. In Japan, 80% of such signs were introduced in 1963, a year prior to the Olympic Games in Tokyo. The use of circular signs to show restriction or ban, triangular signs to solicit warning and quadrilateral signs to provide information and guidance has been applied to various other signs in subsequent years.