Eye Magazine

This exhibition was perfect for children, a perfect primer. They can make their own icons on a lightbox, learn about Lascaux, squat like Sumo wrestlers. If I were to review the exhibition as it was, my praise would be effusive (I took my teen daughter). A promotional photograph shows children standing among almost life-size pictograms, a tram and a temple gate, real and ideographic together, a dream world. The opening statement to the show read: ‘Pictograms are everywhere. From street signs and text messages to toilet doors and maps, they have transformed global travel, removing barriers by creating a universal language.’

It was curated by, and featured the work of Nippon Design Center. This is an intriguing agency founded in 1959 by combining in-house design teams from companies such as Nikon and Asahi Breweries. and now comprises hundreds of designers in every imaginable field of design. The exhibition was centred on the pictograms NDC created for the 1964 Olympics, expanded with dozens more glyphs to help with tourism in Japan.

Japan is behind today’s explosion of pictograms. In 1999, during the first decade of the internet, designer Shigetaka Kurita drew a set of 12×12 pixel icons for the crude screens and low-capacity processors of the era. Some of his icons are simple objects, but some predict today with expressions of feelings and ideas: a broken heart, a bewildered face, a fart

Top. ‘Pictograms’ installation at Japan House features life-size pictograms you can walk around, creating a kind of real-and-unreal-combined world. Photo: Jeremie Souteyrat.

Quentin Newark writer, designer, London

Read the full version in Eye no. 109 vol. 28, 2025