Anja Dorn, Christine Litz, Isabel HerdaThe Society of Signs : Pictograms, Signs of Life, Emojis

The exhibition catalogue “Pictograms, Life Signs, Emojis: The Sign Society” examines the aims and hopes of the development of modern visual sign languages, including emojis. How do they respond to the problems of the age in which they were born? Do they expand our possibilities of expression or do they contribute to stereotyping? The catalogue focuses on the visual sign systems of designers such as Gerd Arntz, Marie and Otto Neurath, Otl Aicher, Yukio Ota or Wolfgang Schmidt and many others. Are their creative developments concerned with universal forms of communication or personal spaces of retreat, with the rapid transmission of information or poetry, with abstraction or individualisation? The catalogue “Pictograms, signs of life, emojis: the sign society” explores the questions: What are the aims and hopes of the development of modern image language, including emojis? What issues of their time do they each address? Do they expand our possibilities of expression or limit them by defining stereotypes? This catalogue focuses on the lexicons and pictorial sign systems created by designers and artists such as Gerd Arntz, Marie and Otto Neurath, Otl Aicher, Yukio Ota or Wolfgang Schmidt and others. To what extent do designers consider their pictorial signs to be functional or engaging? Are they interested in universal forms of communication or personal spaces of retreat, in the rapid transmission of information or in complex or poetic forms of language, abstraction or individualisation?