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Pictograms are everywhere, which is probably why we rarely think about them. Street signs, door symbols, train platforms, your phone keypad, they quietly keep the world moving. Japan House's latest exhibition takes a closer look at this universal visual language and the role Japan has played in shaping it.
The show traces pictograms from ancient origins through to modern design, including the system created for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics that helped set a global standard. There is also space given to the digital age, including the fact that the word "emoji" comes from Japanese. It's part history lesson, part design study, and part reminder of how much we rely on images to understand and navigate our daily lives.
There's also a hands-on element, allowing visitors to build their own symbol from a set of design components and navigate oversized pictograms in the gallery, including a torii gate and a sumo figure. The exhibition also features new works by young designers from the UK, who were asked to represent London in pictogram form.
You can catch the exhibition from 4 November to 9 November, and entry is free.