Blog | The Noun Project

IconLocal Independent Iconathon workshops

Mon, 20 May 2013 13:21:49 -0400

Since launching Iconathons two years ago, we’ve heard requests from people around the world wanting to host their own design events. We’re excited to introduce IconLocals - independently organized Iconathon workshops held on a local community level. The Noun Project created IconLocals to allow independent organizations and civic minded people to host self-organized workshops. We believe this will help spread the social design movement around the world.

IconLocals are a great opportunity to host an event around a civic topic you’re passionate about. But just like with any event, organizing an IconLocal requires a time commitment and hard work. You’ll want to make sure the participants attend an interesting and insightful event, and the symbols created communicate their intended concept elegantly.

To help you get started, we’ve created an application questionnaire that will take you through some of the important points to think about when considering hosting an IconLocal. Once we know you’re committed to hosting an exciting event on an important topic, we will provide you with guidance and materials to help organize & promote your workshop. We look forward to working with you and announcing the new events on Iconathon.org.

Check out our new IconLocal page at Iconathon.org to get started! #IconLocal

*Image of Istanbul copyright by Moyan Brenn

Cultural Heritage Iconathon

Mon, 13 May 2013 13:02:24 -0400

The Noun Project is excited to announce a new Iconathon on Cultural Heritage, sponsored by the Metropolitan New York Library Council (METRO).

Iconathons are organized to engage the general public in the design process, so no design or art skills are necessary – all are welcome to participate. The Iconathon is free to attend but tickets are limited, please RSVP.

“Institutions like libraries, archives and museums serve an essential function in providing access to knowledge, documenting and preserving history, and supporting the civic and cultural needs of their communities – communities often speaking a wide range of languages. A set of public domain icons will enable these cultural organizations to communicate better with patrons and elegantly and clearly visualize the breadth of services, activities, and collections they support and the vital role they play in society,” said Jefferson Bailey, Strategic Initiatives Manager, Metropolitan New York Library Council.

The icons created will be released into the public domain to be used in signage and interactives, as well as to illustrate on-site services, Web pages, online catalogs, mobile applications, and to identify and symbolize many of the other offerings of cultural heritage organizations.

Event Details:

When: Saturday, June 1st from 10:30am to 3:30pm

Where: Metropolitan New York Library Council at 57 E. 11th St, 4th Floor, New York, NY 10003

RSVP: Seating is limited, RSVP for free tickets.

*Image of the New York Public Library by stephs_photos

What might an icon for “encyclopedia-worthy” look like? An update from the Wikimedia Iconathon

Wed, 08 May 2013 14:37:35 -0400

Posted by Vibha Bamba, Interaction Designer - Wikimedia Foundation.

Symbols serve as some of the best tools to overcome language and cultural communication barriers. The aim of the first Wikipedia Iconathon was to create a set of graphic symbols that convey vital concepts to editors and readers of the world’s largest free, collaborative encyclopedia. The Wikimedia Foundation design team organized the event with The Noun Project, with support from Muji in the form of sketch materials. This is a brief update from the design team, as we work on digitalizing the first iteration of icons from the event.

On a rainy Saturday morning, 6 April 2013, the mood among visitors at the Wikimedia Foundation office was upbeat and determined. Educators, volunteers, civic leaders, typographers, designers and Wikipedia editors joined us and Noun Project staff, coming together to collaborate on a set of 20 icons that represent key Wikipedia terms and concepts.

We began by discussing the core challenges of creating this visual language. First, it needed to work across 330 languages. Second, we had to avoid local concepts or metaphors — such as hand gestures, animals, and local humor — that people from other regions may not be familiar with. If icons conveyed directionality, they would have to be adapted for different writing directions, such as right-to-left languages like Hebrew or Arabic. To preserve cross-cultural understanding, it was critical that we come up with a universal representation, regardless of whether the reader is from Germany, India, or Botswana.

After the general discussion of our objectives, we formed groups and looked closely at our assignment. The concepts we needed to visualize ranged from being self contained, such as “rapidly changing article,” to systems like “anonymous” and “registered” users, “administrator,” and “bots.” Participants unanimously considered abstract concepts like “encyclopedia-worthy” and “no original research” to be the most challenging icons.

As the groups discussed each icon and got to sketching, Wikipedians provided context for the symbols as, answering questions like the following (among many others):

Is there more than one context of use for the icon?
Does it convey status or trigger action?
Should it invite inquiry or is it an entry point when a user scans a list?

We were committed to getting it right, even if it meant pulling out laptops to look at all the sample interface elements. We didn’t expect to get into the thick of interaction and behavior, but it helped align the team on tone, detail and playfulness.

After a few hours, we collected the sketches and pinned them to whiteboards around the room. Edward Boatman (co-founder of The Noun Project) moderated an intense group discussion. Experienced editors helped evaluate concepts in the unique Wikipedia way of community-driven decision-making. We identified patterns across sketches and focused on connotations. For example, anonymous users don’t occupy a persistent identity, but they are an important part of the community, so a negative undertone was inappropriate.

We hope to expand the audience of participants to work with the remaining concepts and enable more people to submit their ideas for Wikipedia icons. Given that The Noun Project receives more than 300 icon submissions a day from graphic designers, we’re confident we can leverage their network and their experience to develop engaging icons that are useful for Wikimedia projects.

Currently, we are digitizing the first set of icons that participants in the Iconathon collaboratively selected from our sketch stack. The next step, which we are really excited about, is socializing the icons with the Wikimedia community and getting them to respond and iterate on the concepts that we put forth.

Feel free to join the conversation on-wiki or in the comments, and stay tuned here for future updates. You can view more photos of the event on Commons here and on Flickr here.

Copyright notes: All photos by Matthew Roth licensed under CC-BY-SA 3.0 Unported, from Wikimedia Commons., All photos by Sofya Polyakov of The Noun Project licensed CC-BY Generic 2.0 from Flickr.

Icons by Hour

Mon, 06 May 2013 13:58:00 -0400

For our latest blog post the talented designer Joe Harrison explains his project that connects iconography and the passage of time.

Posted by Noun Project contributor Joe Harrison.

Self-initiated projects have always been an important creative outlet for me. Like most 20-something graphic designers currently living and working in London, I often crave an escape from commercial realities. I’ve worked for a handful of different creative agencies, and have constantly needed a channel for my own personal ideas to develop. Creating things has always come quite naturally to me. I was brought up in Wales, UK, and would spend the majority of my spare time meticulously sketching everyday objects, copying logos and drawing typefaces. I come from a family of 4 brothers, all of which are in the creative sector now. This confirms that my decision to become a designer is inherit. Patience for our craft is a trait which we all posses, and I think we’re all lucky to have the secret of enjoying what we do. It’s what drives my self-initiated projects.

Icons by Hour is a self-initiated project exploring iconography in relation to time. The aim of the project was to give myself a launchpad that would enable me to document everyday objects and actions whilst refining my craft in icon design. The concept of the project is based on chronology; each minute of the day is represented by an icon contextual to that specific time. Although quite subjective, this concept allows the icons to form a narrative, giving a flow that represents a day in the life minute by minute.

At the start of the project, I set myself very strict rules to maintain consistency. Each Icon was to be created only using strokes, with a single colour and weight, and had to be represented in as simple way a possible. I wanted each icon to work at a variety of scales, so picking the appropriate stroke thickness was key. From here, my process was straight forward: think of an object or action that would happen during that minute of the day, and visualise it on a small gridded canvas. Often the process would be rapid, almost instinctual, with no sketching required. I have found that usually the most successful icon ideas can be visualised almost instantly, whilst the simplification and refinement take time. After selecting from several iterations, I would then craft each icon through thoughtful reduction to try to find the perfect balance between minimalism and iconicism.

For some icons following this process was very easy. For example an alarm clock is an icon which can be simplified effortlessly without reducing its communicative power. For others, such as an electric shaver or a keyboard, it was more challenging to find that balance. Removing texture and intricate detail forces you to think much more about the instant impression which a symbol delivers. The project has changed the way I perceive symbols around me - it has provided me with a constant brain exercise to envision physical things as simple symbols in every day environments.

What also interests me are the social and contextual variables which you need to take into consideration when designing icons. You could argue that the collection would be comprehended better by to a designer living in london, as the icons were created through my personal visual representation of a particular object or action. To strengthen the project further, interrogating each icon by travelling to different cities and comparing what you see on a day to day basis would help to come up with a universally understood set of icons that go beyond cultural polarity.

To showcase the Icons by Hour collection and give myself a future-proof framework for new icons, I created a small responsive website purely from svg files. I think the beauty of this type of project is that it’s completely scalable. I intend to continue crafting icons for the remaining minutes of each hour, maintaining the consistent style and narrative that makes the project feel unique.

All of Joe’s amazing symbols can be downloaded on The Noun Project.

Link to Icons by Hour website

Twitter @joe_harrison

Symbol Challenge: Augmented Reality

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 14:33:00 -0400

Photo credit: Antonia Zugaldia

How would you design a symbol that visually communicates the concept of augmented reality? That is the question we are asking in our very first ‘Symbol Challenge’. Symbol Challenge is a new initiative designed to inspire creatives around the world by posting new concepts that need to be “iconifed”. Very similar to what we have done with our Iconathons, we want to focus the talents of The Noun Project community around subjects and topics that need to be visually communicated. These topics will range from current events, to emerging technologies, and even social commentary. Once the design brief is posted, designers from around the world will have two weeks to submit symbols representing the topic. You can also suggest new Symbol Challenge topics by tweeting @nounproject with #SymbolChallenge.

Augmented Reality was selected as our first Symbol Challenge because it is an emerging technology that has the potential to disrupt so many industries. An augmented reality symbol that is universally accepted and understood could be valuable to both manufacturers and consumers.

According to Wikipedia, “Augmented reality (AR) is a live, direct or indirect, view of a physical, real-world environment whose elements are augmented by computer-generated sensory input such as sound, video, graphics or GPS data.” It is a technology that essentially enhances one’s perception of reality. This type of technology can be integrated into hand held devices, projection monitors, and wearable devices, like Google’s new product Google Glass.

Augmented reality has the potential to revolutionize many facets of our lives. Imagine being able to look at a meal and automatically know whether it is gluten free or not. One can look at the food inside their fridge and be informed of what is expired, without taking the risk of sniffing spoiled milk or eating spoiled food. Or imagine being able to look at a person on the street and automatically knowing their name (talk about invasion of privacy). These are just a few basic examples of how augmented reality has the potential to change our lives, but the possibilities are endless.

To help get the discussion started, we offered up our own solution for an augmented reality icon. We started the process by researching the essential elements of AR. One of the main aspects that guided our design is the notion of perception. Although augmented reality utilizes many sensory inputs, visual manipulation is the most prominent feature of this technology. Because of this we felt it was appropriate to use the shape of an eye as one of our main design elements. We decided to not base the design on any piece of current A.R. hardware because this technology is going to rapidly evolve. We did not want to run the risk of the design becoming irrelevant similar to the floppy disk representing “save.”

Our research also showed that augmented reality combines the layering of real environments with virtual information. For this reason we used two eyes to represent both the real and virtual worlds. Next, we aimed to visually communicate how these two ways of seeing are layered to create an augmented view. The concept of a Venn Diagram was used to portray this layering. When the two eyes overlap a new eye is created, which represents the new augmented reality.

Classical proportions were used when creating the geometry of the design. Each eye is scaled to fit within the proportions of the Golden Rectangle - a historical ratio that is aesthetically pleasing. We also used different line weights within the design to create depth and make the icon more visually compelling.

Now that you understand our thought process behind designing this icon, we would love to see your solution. We challenge you to iconify the concept of augmented reality!

Please submit your designs to The Noun Project by Monday, May 13th. We are excited to see what you come up with. The icon above can be downloaded here.

Investigative Journalism Icons now Available

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 15:23:10 -0400

Superpacks. Drones. Gerrymandering. Dark Money. How do you quickly illustrate these concepts in a way that is meaningful and impactful to an audience of different education levels and cultural backgrounds? That was the challenge set out before a group of 60 volunteers at an Iconathon The Noun Project hosted at The New York Times back in February. Journalists, editors, graphic designers, web developers and engaged citizens brainstormed and sketched ideas for icons frequently needed throughout news editorials and applications. The goal of creating these symbols is to help guide readers through the in-depth stories investigative journalists help uncover, to provide a graphical shorthand that helps navigate readers through complicated concepts, as well as to help illustrate infographics that help people better understand important facts and correlations.

The final set of 22 Investigative Journalism symbols are now included in the Iconathon suite and available for anyone to use as public domain. We’d like to thank all the attendees who participated in the Iconathon, The New York Times for hosting us in their space, Knight-Mozilla OpenNews for sponsoring, and ProPublica and Hacks/Hackers NYC for being vital partners in organizing this event.

Civic Hacking Symbols now Available

Wed, 27 Mar 2013 14:03:00 -0400

Just over a month ago we teamed up with Code for America’s Brigade and The LAB Miami to host an Iconathon around Civic Hacking. Our goal was to create symbols frequently needed by civic hackers when developing new civic apps and websites. The design workshop was held in The LAB Miami’s newly opened collaborative space that supports social innovation and entrepreneurship. Thanks to the diligent work of the Iconathon participants, and generous support of the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, the symbols are now available for free download as public domain!

Visualizing Big Ideas Collection by (mt) now available!

Tue, 19 Mar 2013 18:32:07 -0400

Everyone knows how it feels when a big idea is generated in your mind. Exhilarating, thrilling, and exciting are all words to describe that feeling of breakthrough and discovery. But how would you visualize this feeling? What does the generation of a big bold idea look like?

The Noun Project teamed up with our favorite web hosting provider, (mt) Media Temple, to host an Iconathon during SXSW to answer this question. During a 2 hour brainstorm session, Iconathon participants sketched designs that visually communicate what they feel like when they have a big idea. Below is one of the sketches behind the “heel-click”.

We narrowed down all the sketches to 6 final concepts. The Big Ideas collection is now available as public domain for free download, thanks to (mt) Media Temple.

Our team got really excited over the heel-click finger-in-the-air dude. So we had a little contest to see who can do it better, turns out it’s much harder than it looks!

Think you can do it? Take a photo or Vine video of yourself clicking your heels together with your finger in the air and post it to Instagram, Twitter, or Vine with the tag #MTBigIdea. Our favorite photo or video wins a whole year of free hosting on (mt) and an awesome (mt) swag pack!

Happy downloading (and heel-clicking)!

The Visual Language of Wikipedia Iconathon in San Francisco

Tue, 12 Mar 2013 20:41:00 -0400

How do you navigate 500 million unique visitors from different countries across a reference site available in 285 languages? With over 25 million collaboratively written and edited articles, Wikipedia sets the standard for building user experiences that cross cultural and language differences. To help in this effort, The Noun Project is hosting an Iconathon design workshop sponsored by the Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit that operates Wikipedia and its sister sites, to create a set of public domain navigation, editing, feedback and expression symbols that can be used not only by Wikipedia editors, but anyone on the internet, for free.

The Iconathon will bring together designers, students, civic activists, and Wikipedia-enthusiasts for a day-long workshop focused around creating symbols for best user-comprehension. The Noun Project organizes Iconathons to engage the public in the design process, so no art or design skills are necessary to participate.

The open nature of Wikipedia has served as an inspiration for The Noun Project to provide a platform for a visual language anyone can use to communicate. Given the extensive usage of Wikipedia by people from around the world, we are thrilled to collaborate with the Wikimedia Foundation on adding navigation focused symbols to the public domain.

Event Details:

When: Saturday, April 6th from 10:30am to 4:00pm

Where: Wikimedia Foundation at 149 New Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94105

RSVP: Seating is limited. RSVP for free tickets.

Investigative Journalism Iconathon The New York Times

Thu, 07 Mar 2013 15:05:23 -0500

A couple weeks ago we ventured to New York City for an Iconathon at The New York Times building - a suitable venue for creating symbols around the theme of Investigative Journalism. Our goal for this Iconathon was to make symbols that will help visualize information and data in the news, as well as create symbols that can be used by reporters to discuss current events. A mix of journalists, editors, graphic designers, web developers and civic-minded participants volunteered their Saturday to help accomplish this goal.

Chrys Wu (Hacks/Hackers NYC), Scott Klein (Editor of News Applications at ProPublica), and Matt Ericson (Deputy Graphics Editor at The New York Times) started off the day with insightful presentations on how symbols help to share information with the public through new age journalism. In today’s digital era, symbols are frequently used on mobile news apps and interactive websites to effectively communicate information about current events in politics, government, environment, technology, etc. Given the abundance and depth of information for a lot of these topics, visual graphics help tell these stories in a way that is easy for anyone to understand.

(Presentation by Matt Ericson from The New York Times)

After the presentations we split into teams and generated ideas for concepts like Gerrymandering, Wire Tap, Fracking, Dark Money, Abuse of Power, and Drone.

We ended the day with a group critique to discuss which ideas were the most successful at illustrating each concept. The open discussion allowed everyone to compare sketches and work in a collaborative effort to choose the most comprehensive symbols. The best ideas from each topic will soon be transformed from rough sketches into graphic icons that will be free to download as public domain.

A huge thanks to all of the volunteers who participated, The New York Times for sharing their phenomenal space with us, Knight-Mozilla OpenNews for sponsoring, and ProPublica and Hacks/Hackers NYC for helping to organize the event!

More photos from the Iconathon are on Flickr.

The ‘Ideas’ Iconathon during SXSW in Austin

Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:19:10 -0500

The Noun Project is excited to host an Iconathon during SXSW with (mt) Media Temple!

(mt) Media Temple has been an essential partner of The Noun Project ever since we launched. We are thrilled they’ve decided to sponsor a fun 2-hour workshop to create a new visual language around inspiration and creativity. What does it feel like when you get that moment of inspiration? How would you visually communicate that feeling in a simple pictogram? We’ll be working together to create a new set of icons to illuminate the world of “Ideas.”

For more than 15 years, (mt) Media Temple has been helping people bring their big ideas to life. In that time they’ve witnessed a lot of light-bulb-over-the-head, “a-ha!” moments. Together we’re fascinated by the challenge of illustrating that moment and that feeling. The symbols created during this workshop will be added to The Noun Project as public domain for anyone to use.

So if you have an interest in art, design, or iconography—or good ideas, or beer, for that matter—and you’re planning on being in Austin on March 11th, come join us! No design or art skills needed, Iconathons are meant to engage everyone in the design process so don’t be shy.

Event Details:
Monday, March 11, 2013
6:00pm-8:00pm
Paste Lounge at The Blackheart
86 Rainey St., Austin, TX 78701
Seating is limited—RSVP for free tickets

Making People Happy

Mon, 04 Mar 2013 12:14:00 -0500

Any organization whether it be a sports team, business, or family needs a set of values or a core ethos that guides and influences their decisions. Clearly defining these values is hard to do, but great things can happen when companies know what they stand for. One company like this is MailChimp. They value happiness and they’re showing that by sponsoring a collection of 30 free beautiful “happiness” icons. These fun symbols will make a great addition to your next creative project. Please download, they’re sure to make you smile!

Designing “Badges of Honor” for Organics Recycling

Wed, 27 Feb 2013 15:00:00 -0500

Every day countless businesses across the country take extra time and effort to minimize the impact their operations have on the environment. One of the areas in which a lot of progress is being made is in Organics Recycling. Organics recycling includes both traditional composting, as well as innovative programs such as “Food-to-People,” in which edible food is donated to people in need, and “Food-to-Livestock,” in which organic waste is sent to local farmers for hog-feed. Food scraps and food-soiled paper make up a ¼ of our garbage, creating methane (a potent greenhouse gas) when landfilled. Recycling these organics reduces garbage in our landfills, creates valuable resources and provides economic development opportunities.

We want to make it easier for anyone to know which restaurants and businesses go that extra mile to make our world better. We believe if people know which restaurants donate their food scraps to a local food shelter, or what businesses recycled their organics by participating in a local composting program, they will choose those businesses over others. By recognizing these businesses for their efforts, we hope to encourage others to participate in cutting down their waste.

To get the ball rolling, we’ve teamed up with Minneapolis’ Hennepin County Environmental Services to host an Iconathon design workshop with the goal of creating a badge system that can be displayed on storefronts across the city. These “badges of honor” will be similar in nature to the Yelp or Zagat rating stickers that can be seen on restaurants around the country. The Iconathon will be held on Sunday, March 24th as part of University of Minnesota College of Design’s Public Interest Design Week.

We’ve chosen Hennepin County as our partner in this because they have been at the forefront of the organics recycling movement. The county has assisted businesses, schools and cities in setting up organics recycling programs, including providing a grant to the City of Minneapolis for a pilot curbside organics recycling program in the Linden Hills neighborhood. Currently, about 150 businesses in the county, such as Target, MSP Airport and IKEA, as well as numerous schools and colleges, participate in organics recycling.

When the recycling movement began in the early 1970’s, a 23-year-old college student Gary Anderson created the now universally recognized recycling symbol that has since had a tremendous effect on our environment. Our goal is to engage the design community and civic activists to create new “badges of honor” to encourage more recycling programs around the world. The icons created during the Iconathon will be released into the public domain to be used by anyone interested in engaging in recycling programs.

The Organics Recycling Iconathon is sponsored by the University of Minnesota College of Design, PublicInterestDesign.org and The Richard H. Driehaus Foundation.

Event Details:

When: Sunday, March 24th from 10:30am to 3:30pm

Where: University of Minnesota, College of Design, Rapson Hall at 89 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455.

RSVP: Seating is limited, RSVP for free tickets.

Yelp sticker photo taken by Robyn Lee.

Iconathon on Investigative Journalism at The New York Times

Tue, 05 Feb 2013 11:32:00 -0500

The Noun Project has teamed up with ProPublica and Hacks/Hackers NYC in organizing an Iconathon to create a new visual language around Investigative Journalism. This Iconathon will be held at The New York Times building on Saturday, February 23rd, and is sponsored by Knight-Mozilla OpenNews and The New York Times.

We’ll be creating symbols for concepts in watchdog journalism such as public records, on-the-record sources, corporate malfeasance, and illustrating the ways power may be abused in both the public and private sectors. The icons created will be released into the public domain to be used in news applications and interactives, as well as to illustrate reporting series, Web site topic pages, and mobile applications.

The Iconathon will kick off with presentations on tech & investigative journalism by Scott Klein - editor of News Applications at ProPublica, and Matthew Ericson - deputy graphics director at The New York Times. “A new set of icons for news will help graphics editors and news application developers use graphical shorthand in place of lengthy explanation — the proverbial thousand words — and to tell meaningful and impactful stories more gracefully and graphically” - said Scott Klein.

Event Details:

When: Saturday, February 23rd from 10:30am to 4:00pm
Where: The New York Times building at 620 8th Avenue, 15th Floor, New York, NY 10019
RSVP: Seating is limited, RSVP for free tickets.

The Noun Project organizes Iconathons to engage the general public in the design process, so no design or art skills are necessary - all are welcome to participate!

According to Chrys Wu of Hacks/Hackers NYC “Investigative journalism is about explaining complicated concepts and revealing systemic problems. If we can do that visually, it can help readers better understand the reported stories.” We’re honored to help out in such an important endeavor.

*Detective icon is by Simon Child.

Civic Hacker Iconathon in Miami February 16th

Tue, 29 Jan 2013 12:11:56 -0500

The Noun Project is teaming up with The LAB Miami for an Iconathon to create public domain symbols for civic hackers.

This Iconathon will bring together designers, hackers, students and civic-minded Miami residents for a collaborative workshop to design symbols for public interest. The Noun Project is working with Code for America’s Brigade to identify which symbols are frequently needed by civic hackers when developing new civic apps and websites. The Brigade is an organizing force for local civic engagement - a national network of “civic hackers” who contribute their skills and time to better their communities by way of technology.

The workshop will be held at The LAB Miami’s newly opened collaborative space in the Wynwood Art District. The LAB’s campus is a dynamic environment for social innovation and entrepreneurship that includes tech startups, programmers, designers, investors, entrepreneurs, nonprofits, artists and academics.

Event Details:

When: Saturday, February 16th from 10:30am to 3:30pm
Where: The LAB Miami at 400 NW 26th Street, Miami FL 33127
RSVP: Seating is limited, RSVP for free tickets.

The Civic Hacker Iconathon is sponsored by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation.

*Lab Rat image courtesy of The LAB Miami.

The Quest to Create & Share a Universal Visual Language, by Made on (mt)

Tue, 08 Jan 2013 13:26:45 -0500

We love working with amazing companies, which is one of the many reasons we chose Media Temple as our web hosting service. Media Temple’s focus on community and customer service is inspiring. A perfect example of this sense of community is their Made on (mt) video series, through which they tell the stories behind the inspiring small businesses and brands that live on their servers. We were lucky enough to be the latest installment in the series and to share our story and vision through this video.

Thanks again (mt)!

(mt) Client Showcase: The Noun Project from (mt) Media Temple on Vimeo.

Using Icons for Forest Safety

Wed, 02 Jan 2013 12:26:00 -0500

How do you tell a Russian, a Guatemalan and a Cambodian the forest in which they are harvesting greens can be a dangerous place? With words, maybe. With images? Definitely. Luis Prado, a member of The Noun Project community, tells us how he used symbols to visually communicate vital information for the Department of Natural Resources:

In Washington State, the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) manages state trust lands that earn revenue to build public schools and universities, and much more. Some are forestlands selected for harvesting specialized forest products like salal and ferns, popular in the floral industry. ‘Brush harvesters’ get a permit, and flock to the forest where pretty butterflies are not the only inhabitants. Hunters go there too—they target-shoot and they hunt various animals during several hunting seasons. Logging trucks drive on narrow roads year-round.

Concerned about harvester safety, DNR’s Law Enforcement called upon our DNR Communications & Outreach team for help. Safety was paramount, and harvester visibility in the forest was a key issue. Brush harvesters wearing warm dark clothing were not easily distinguished from the trees and shadows of the forest. We needed to communicate key safety concepts and harvesting rules basics to harvesters from diverse cultural origins, many of whom do not speak English.

Perhaps a cliché, but true nonetheless: an image (and an icon) is worth a thousand words. We needed simple designs to communicate complex concepts. And what better to communicate this than designing with recognizable iconography? The Noun Project to the rescue.

In choosing or developing icons we tried not to use images that may be misinterpreted or offensive to people from various cultures. As an example, a happy face was a better choice than a thumbs-up or thumbs-down icons.

The materials produced include an accordion-like booklet that fits into a pocket with one side showing key messages, and the other side displaying an attention grabbing “Workers in forest” text that can be posted on the back window of the harvester’s van to let other forest visitors know of their presence. The outreach effort also includes metal signs for entry points into forest roads, and posters for educating brush harvesters about the need of wearing bright-colored clothes, purchasing necessary permits, and following the rules. In some panels, a translation to Spanish and Cambodian Khmer was included.

Credits

Washington State Department of Natural Resources, Communications & Outreach: Design by Luis Prado. Editors: Jane Chavey, Jennifer Arnold; Larry Raedel, DNR Law Enforcement Chief.

Icons from The Noun Project: Harvester, van and logging truck icons designed by Luis Prado/DNR; Hand icon by Øystein W. Arbo; Trash by Roger Cook, Don Shanosky, Riley Shaw; Open Hands icon collaboration by Jack Biesek, Gladys Brenner, Margaret Faye, Healther Merrifield, Kate Keating, Wendy Olmstead, Todd Pierce, Jamie Cowgill & Jim Bolek. Happy & Sad Face icons by Tobias F. Wolf.

Using Iconic Design Tools in Rural India

Tue, 18 Dec 2012 12:23:05 -0500

A few months ago we saw a fascinating image of Noun symbols etched on wooden tiles. Our interest was piqued even further when we found out Noel Wilson, an Industrial Engineer at Catapult Design, was using these symbols to communicate about water in rural Indian villages.

Catapult Design is a non-profit design firm providing engineering and implementation support to the thousands of organizations in need of technologies or products capable of igniting social change. Their mission is to develop and implement human-centered products to help the world’s population that lacks access to life’s basic needs.

We reached out to Noel to find out more about how Catapult is using the symbols from the collection.

by Noel Wilson

Catapult Design first tapped The Noun Project resources when making a research tool for a project investigating water access and use in rural India. I needed to get an understanding of symbolic literacy in Rajasthan villages. I etched a series of icons onto interlocking wooden tiles (some of them gleaned from The Noun Project) and intentionally left a lot of tiles blank. In each village we visited in Rajasthan, I asked people to experiment with the tiles in 3 ways: first, I asked people to identify what the icons referred to; then I asked people to explain a story using the tiles; finally, I asked them to draw some tiles of their own. The intention was to experiment with ways of discovering symbolic literacy, as well as use those findings to inform any instructions or guides we would have to make relevant to our water project.

The next time around was much more topical. Literacy Bridge, an organization empowering children and adults with tools for knowledge sharing and literacy learning, contacted us to help them solve an issue with their Talking Book interface. The Talking Book is an audio computer that shares locally-relevant knowledge and improves literacy in areas with limited access to literature. Literacy Bridge interacts with communities in Northern Ghana where there is no word for ‘arrow’ in their lexicon. They needed to be able to instruct the user to press a button relative to a spoken instruction. We experimented with a bunch of different icons and shapes, some of them from The Noun Project site, some of them created by us, and a few lifted from other sources. Thanks to the timezone difference between California and Ghana, the feedback loop was quick. While we slept Literacy Bridge would report back the responses they got from the field, we would adapt the icons according to their suggestions, and the next day they would be tested again. We worked our way through icons that had issues working with the spoken instructions of the device, icons that implied too much of a specific task (‘fish’ = food), that had too much potential religious connotation (‘plus’ = cross), or that even had too much local political association (‘umbrella’ & ‘rooster’ are local Ghanaian political party symbols). We are continuing to help Literacy Bridge achieve an appropriate interface through their piloting stage (they are testing Talking Books in the thousands!).

We plan to continue developing new research games and other design resources, and to continue using The Noun Project to help us when we need the right icon. It’s an excellent resource even if I still cant find an icon for ‘design’ up there (nor an icon for ‘icon’) but I’m hitting my sketchpad to work on it.

Thanks Noun Project! Keep up the good work! We will see you at the next Iconathon!

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And here is thanks and attribution to all of The Noun Project icon creators that unknowingly helped us out!

Pavel Pavlov: Thumbs Up/Approve
Stephen James Kennedy: Auto Rickshaw
Roger Cook & Don Shanosky: Baby, Train, Person , Ground Transport
Nick Levesque: Cooking Pan
Connor Cesa: Water Drop
Mike Endale: Hut, Community
Udaya Kumar: Rupee
Adrijan Karavdic: Elephant
Gibran Bisio: Paint Can
Edward Boatman, Saul Tannenbaum, Stephen Kennedy, Nikki Snow & Brooke Hamilton: Childrens Library
Valentina Piccione: Tree
Tak Imoto: Leaves
Michal Stassel: Axe
Jeremy Linden: Knifes
Kyle Scott, Roman J. Sokolov: Glasses

Images courtesy of Catapult Design and Literacy Bridge. A version of this post previously appeared on Catapult’s blog.

Disaster Icons Now Available

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 12:37:30 -0500

In October we teamed up with the American Red Cross in Washington D.C. to host an Iconathon around the idea of urban disaster preparedness. We are happy to announce the concepts generated at the event have been successfully turned into symbols, and are now available for download in the Iconathon Collection.

It was sobering to think of all the use cases while designing these symbols. Living in California, the symbol for Earthquake was particularly relevant to us. The group at the Iconathon thought the best way to communicate this concept was to show the earth cracking, and this crack extending into a building which has been damaged.

The new symbol for Animal Shelter that we created during the Iconathon could have been helpful to organizations like the ASPCA during the recent Hurricane Sandy. The animals displayed under the shelter roof can be swapped out or added, depending on if the shelter allows farm or exotic animals, for example.

As natural and human-made disasters continue to be more and more frequent, we look forward to working again with the Red Cross and other relief organizations to create more disaster-specific symbols to help in the most urgent of times.

Top 100 Leaders in Public Interest Design

Fri, 07 Dec 2012 11:48:42 -0500

The Noun Project is very honored to be included in Public Interest Design’s list of the Top 100 National Leaders working at the intersection of design and service. It is such a privilege to be included among the visionaries we so admire.

The list features some of our favorite organizations and people we’ve had the pleasure of working with, such as Jennifer Pahlka (Code for America), Jake Barton (Local Projects), Candy Chang (Neighborland), Valerie Casey (The Designers Accord), Heather Fleming (Catapult Design), and Liz Gerber (Design for America). And of course former president Bill Clinton.

We feel very strongly that a visual language that can be understood by all people can help create positive impact around the world. We look forward to continuing our mission of “creating, sharing, and celebrating the world’s visual language.”

See the full list on the Public Interest Design website.