Andreas Haugstrup Pedersen | solitude.dk

Umberto Eco talks about open texts, those that have many blank spots where reader interpretation can thrive. In the age of DSLRs and the photographic norms from Flickr where aestetics have become an unnatural obsession with 'sharpness' the technicalities of recording an image leaves little room for an open text (there are of course other way to make a photograph open). It is only when the equipment performs below par that we get an excercise in reader interpretation. Take for example the above photo that I got back from the photo lab yesterday. Somehow my shutter had become sticky after the first two exposures and now I'm left with 34 very open texts to interpret.

Microsoft are bouncing around drafts for new RSS icons. Scoble makes a note of why Microsoft likes icons over text:

We use icons to denote everything. Why not just text? Cause icons work better and we want to localize everything. Windows is available in 26 or so languages and icons translate better than letters like RSS or XML.

I agree completely. This is the exact same reason I generally prefer the iconic road signs you find in Europe over the symbolic US counterparts (there are exeptions). Maybe the Federal Transit Administration should listen to Microsoft — or better yet, hire me. Icons, baby, icons.

Back in April I talked about differences in road signs between Europe and USA. I managed to pick up an example during my summer vacation. On the left there's the American sign for a dead end street — it's a perfect example of a symbolic sign consisting only of the text “DEAD END”.

On the opposite side there is the Danish equivalent, picked up in central Aalborg on a day much sunnier than today. I'm sure it's thought as an iconic sign, but this sign shows the danger of a bad icon. In my opinion the Danish sign lacks the ambiguity which is the strength of an iconic sign. Is it a dead end or a ddangerous intersection ahead?

For once I actually favour the symbolic sign.

When they try to teach us about the wonderful world of semiotics at the university they always use road signs as examples. Apparently signs are good to use as examples of… signs (I should stay away from puns).

In Europe I'm used to seeing many iconic signs on road signs. Like the pictogram of a bike in the bike path sign to the left. The arrow below the pictogram is not iconic but symbolic (arbitraty, based on a convention), but it's such a well defined symbol in all of the world that cultural differences don't change anything.

I hadn't really spent much time thinking about road signs until I went to the USA last summer. Here I rarely saw pictograms used on road signs instead everything was written out in English (language being a symbolic sign).

After pondering the differences for five minutes I came to the conclusion that using symbolic signs in Europe would be a really bad idea. There are so many different cultures (and thus languages) packed into a small relatively small area. You can never be sure that the person who has to understand the road sign will be able to decipher an arbitrary code — especially not one so complex as the local language.

Iconic signs are much better. They are not completely culturally independent, but they are more independent. As an added bonus icons are much simpler signs and thus they are faster to interpret than complex symbols (like a sentence). This is a Good Thing™ when you are driving down the highway.

Walking around campus I did find some signs that combine icons with language. This also gives me a chance to show a (very) small glimpse of what the outside of Aalborg University looks like.

The first is the red sign above. The car and motorbike icons along with the common symbolic sign of them having a line through is easy to decipher no matter where you come from: “No motor vehicles beyond this point.” The sentence below can't be understood unless you actually know Danish (or a related language). In this case we're lucky because the language below isn't needed to keep yourself within the law. It reads “Service- and handicap driving allowed”. The worst thing that can happen is that you have to break out the wheelchair before you have to.

Generally I think that's a good way to do complex signs. Do the really important signs with icons and use language only if you have to and not for information that's vital.

The second sign (the blue one of the left) does the same thing. The man and child on the left divided from the bike on the right shows you that this is a divided pedestrian- and bike path. Below you can read “Roller skating on the bike path allowed”. Denmark's cracked out laws classify roller skaters as pedestrians and thus they usually belong on the pedestrian path. If you're not able to read the text below the sign you can't break the law anyway. Roller skaters are allowed on both the bike path and the pedestrian path.

What annoys my about this sign is something else. The pedestrians are marked on the left half of the sign, but the pedestrian path is actually located to the right. This is ilogical and messes up the iconic sign. They should have two versions of this road sign to cover all situations.

Next week: More exciting road signs from Denmark! Or maybe not.

The weather was absolutely wonderful yesterday. I even broke out my summer jacket, something that I am notorious for doing very late in the year. Walking back from a meeting at work I took this photo:

Arrows like this one were scattered on the bike path and sidewalk in what I think is either the Political Science department or the Music department on campus. There are ducks, water and a kindergarten nearby so I don't think it's the university students who have been chalking.

At this point I could break out Charles S. Peirce and the big book of semiotics. I could talk about the symbolism in the photo with the arrow pointing at the photographer and not away from him. I could even go so far as to speculate on the photographer's need for attention.

Instead I will only point out that I think it's quite wonderful that there are still children outside with chalk on sunny spring days. Not everything is lost to the Sony Playstation!

I would link to a larger version of the photo, but the camera I'm using is a Logitech Pocket Digital and it's nothing more than a mobile webcam. On the plus side it fits into any pocket so I can bring it anywhere.