From Hieroglyphs to Emoji, to IKON: The Search of the (Perfect?) Visual Language

Beyond emojis: an insight into the IKON language

“…They have, in most cases, a limited vocabulary of icons and a specific application. There are also "natural visual languages" that use logograms such as Chinese, Mayan, and Egyptian (Reale et al, 2021).…”

“…3 Creation of an icon in IKON 3.1 Methodology IKON follows philosophical, linguistic, and graphical principles. IKON language aims to create a compositional, iconic, international, and languageindependent system (see Reale et al, 2021 for a more detailed analysis).…”

“…The IKON lexicon is a core set of around 500 icons covering basic concepts, used directly to communicate complex ideas and, indirectly, as "building blocks" to create new "compound words" (Reale et al, 2021). As we will see, the list is continuously growing as from each meaning other meanings stem, if necessary, in a disambiguating process.…”

“…Hyponymic icons, on the opposite, highlight a specific member of the hyperonymic set. Ancient and modern visual systems present these strategies (Reale et al, 2021).…”

“…Iconometer was previously used within the IKON language to evaluate icons from the family domain and gender symbols used to signify gender. (Reale et al, 2021). Family icons representing family relationships with different gender signifiers were tested: only gender symbols, only haircuts, or both gender signifiers.…”