icographic 14/15
1978 Icographic
TABLE OF CONTENTS
02 The London Underground diagram John A Walker
The author analyses the diagrammatic conventions of Henry Beck's famous two-dimensional graphic represent ation of the London Underground railway system, arguing that it is a masterpiece of twentieth-century graphic art that has been accorded insufficient recognition by the art establishment.
05 Symbols for deafness
We show the first-prize winning design and two runners-up in a recent competition for the design of a symbol for the deaf and hard-of hearing.
06 Symbols for tourist guides and maps
We publish a set of symbols prepared by the British Tourist Authority for use by the publishers of maps and guide books, providing information for tourists.
10 Blissymbols for the disabled—a manner of speaking Jack Anson Finke
The author describes the remarkable success of Charles Bliss' Semanto graphy among patients of the Ontario Crippled Children's Center, Canada.
14 Pattern design and literacy Jorge Frascara
The author describes a joint project being developed by the Departments of Art and Design and Psychology in the University of Alberta, aiming to design an improved alphabet that might help retarded children to more readily identify letterforms.
16 Japanese match box graphics
We show a selection of late nine teenth century Japanese match box cover designs.
18 Type research at the London College of Printing
We show a selection of foreign type faces developed by staff and post graduate students within the research unit of the London College of Printing.
22 Tell us what's wrong in pictures—a medical phrase book
We show sample spreads from an experimental pictorial phrase book developed by the Health Education Council of Great Britain, designed to help medical staff when dealing with non-English speaking patients.
23 Computer and laser technology speed up Chinese printing
A brief account of how the Mono type Corporation's new laser-printing methods will revolutionise the production of Chinese printing.
23 New ways to view world problems
The East-West Open Grants division, Hawaii, recently invited five visual communicators from the USA, Japan, India and Iran to become research fellows and work as a team.
Their brief was to explore ways in which visual communication could be employed to provide essential information to people worldwide. We show some slides from an audio-visual presentation which they produced on 'Ways of visualising global interdependencies.
32 Signs of hope-good news for Bombay outpatients Stephen Raw
The author examines a recent proposal for labelling drugs for a Bombay hospital outpatients department. The solution employs a well-founded graphic system using symbols but without overlooking the very particular locality in which it is to work.
34 Pictorial prescription labels Jeremy Bratt
The author describes some experi mental work aimed at replacing existing hand-written labels on ophthalmic medicine containers by printed labels, using graphic imagery to communicate the correct dosage and any cautionary information to illiterate outpatients at a London hospital. The intention is to reduce the number of errors made by illiterate outpatients in following their prescriptions.
38 Design students project-graphic symbols for public information
We show some of the results from the recent Icograda design students project-Graphic Symbols for Public Information, in which design students from many countries were asked to work on the design and development of test symbols.
We show sample spreads from an experimental pictorial phrase book developed by the Health Education Council of Great Britain, designed to help medical staff when dealing with non-English speaking patients.
45 Signing system for a maternity hospital in Buenos Aires
A brief account of how the Monotype Corporation's new laser-printing methods will revolutionise the production of Chinese printing.
47 First steps on a thousand mile journey—part 4 Patrick Wallis Burke
The author, in his concluding article, examines the layman's widely held opinion that Chinese is a particularly difficult written language to learn. He suggest that the difficulties may be exaggerated, since each character exhibits, not only strong formal properties but also shows its etymological origins rather more vividly than do alphabetic words. Form can be powerfully augmented by content to make each character a well-known friend.