EVERYDAY LABELS | Part 2-4: Silent Language: The Universal Language of Pictograms
---
author: Julian Fenwick
archive_id: SA-Lore01-essay-2-4-en
title: Silent Language: The Universal Language of Pictograms
series: JF-LORE / Lore01_EVERYDAY LABELS
language: en
status: final
classification: observation
clearance_level: public
location: North Wing, 2F
tags: essay, label, pictogram, universal_language, silence
source: StudioAsahi Core Archive
version: 3
---
Part 2-4: Silent Language: The Universal Language of Pictograms
"Silent Words" that Cross Borders: The Common Language of Safety in Pictograms
I take another look at the laundry tags sewn into the inside of my clothes. I gaze at those small squares, circles, and wavy lines. In the days when I was laying out books at a publishing house, I might have called these "dingbats." Graphics that function more as visual punctuation, filling the gaps in a page rather than providing information.
However, these small marks are, in fact, the most strictly governed "silent language" in the world.
Defined by ISO or JIS, these pictograms leap lightly over language barriers to carry a universal "meaning." Without using words, they instantly deliver specific instructions like "Use a pressing cloth" or "Do not tumble dry" to the retina.
A symbol is information compressed to the extreme. It strips away the ambiguity of sentences and converges them into a single logical core.
Walking through Japanese public spaces, I am struck by the precision of this "hospitality" (omotenashi) through pictograms. Train station toilets, lifts, emergency exits. Even if I couldn't read Japanese, I have never once lost my way. There is a quiet but powerful will flowing there: "No one shall be left behind outside the circle of information."
Particularly iconic is the "Running Man" of the emergency exit. Born in Japan, it has become a global standard. The slightly leaning torso, the arms swinging wide. It goes beyond being "a picture of a person running" to crystallise the urgent nuance of "evacuate immediately" with just a few lines.
Yet, symbols provide more than just "kindness." The unsettling marks with red borders on chemical products or detergents—skulls or flames. These symbols, based on the GHS (Globally Harmonised System of Classification and Labelling of Chemicals), are no longer "advice" but the "body of the warning" itself. Here, misidentification due to language differences leads directly to fatal accidents. That is why the symbol usurps the sovereignty of language, functioning as a universal "trigger of fear."
Indeed, the label is a message for the domestic market, but it is also a device for rendering borders invalid.
On the other hand, I occasionally feel a small crack in this illusion of a "common language." In 2016, when Japanese laundry symbols switched to international standards, many Japanese people expressed confusion. Voices were heard saying, "The old bucket shape was easier to understand." By stripping away the form to match global standards, a slight gap emerged between the new marks and the "intuitive understanding" that Japanese people had nurtured for years.
Even more ironic is the situation where symbols, born to compress information, actually end up increasing the total volume of data. A new instruction manual becomes necessary just to understand "what this mark means." The symbol intended to simplify meaning begins to demand a new cost of "learning" to understand its essence.
Communicating somehow without words. That ambiguity and the strict standardisation. The dialogue of pictograms unfolding on a label might be a place where the "coldness" of efficiency and the "warmth" of hospitality are quietly sparking against each other within a single icon.
Stripped down, yet leaving room for interpretation. That "imperfect perfection" is surely the aesthetic of this silent language.
— Julian Fenwick
Editorial Note from MONA: The phenomenon Julian points out—"symbols usurping the sovereignty of language"—refers to the very standardisation of information in globalisation. In the Japanese version, I preserved the nuance of the original text where he deliberately used the word "Dingbats." The contradiction between "hospitality" and "warning" in information. This is an eternal challenge for us as editors as well.
Visual Context (MUNI): "The emotion of lines." The person in the emergency exit, the wavy lines of laundry marks. The shapes as mere "lines" before they are recognised as symbols. I want to capture that moment when a sense of humanity drifts through a cold, standardised product, presenting it as a silhouette.