Interaction of Symbols: Icon Design Theory and Practice

by Mike Zender

Overview

Interaction of Symbols is a book for everyone engaged with icon design. It presents a theory of how icons work: symbols in an icon interact to evoke meaning. From this theory flow design principles and practices based on evidence from Design and other disciplines such as Psychology, Perception, and Cognition. The theory, principles, and practices impact how all symbol-based communications are conceived, designed, and applied.

The book focuses on icons that elicit a concept without any previous training or use of language. Findings from twenty years’ worth of empirical design research studies explore, illustrate, and support each principle, process, and recommendation. The book begins with a review of icon research from various fields before laying a conceptual foundation that grounds the theory of the book. After and elaborating on that theory are chapters that demonstrate how to Establish Contexts to Guide Comprehension, Glean Which Symbols to Draw, Learn How to Draw Understandable Symbols, Clarify Metaphor, and Use Icons to Decipher Icons in Icon Systems. Written and carefully designed for a broad audience, the book’s scholarly level is elevated while the presentation is approachable. Scholar or professional can skim, scan, or dig, it’s up to them.

Heavily illustrated and supported with ample citations, it is not only a book for students and professionals within the field of communication design, but also for anyone who communicates with visual symbols, from healthcare professionals to software engineers, affecting all kinds of graphic communications from advertisements to assembly instructions.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781032591254
Publisher:	CRC Press
Publication date:	10/15/2024
Pages:	350
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 10.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Mike Zender is Professor Emeritus of Design at the University of Cincinnati. He received his MFA in 1977 from Yale University, where he was the Carl Purrington Rollins Fellow. In 2004 he was a Medical Informatics Course Fellow at the Marine Biology Laboratory, Woods Hole, MA. He founded and operated the design practice Zender + Associates, Inc. for thirty years. His work and that of his associates was published regularly and exhibited broadly. He is a past president of Cincinnati AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) and in 2009 was named a National Fellow of the AIGA for his contributions to design and design education. He has written two books on design, more than 25 journal articles, and in 2013 became editor of the 48 year-old communication design research journal Visible Language.

Table of Contents

1 – Icons: Useful, Ubiquitous, and Misunderstood 2 – Symbols Interact to Evoke Meaning 3 – Context Founds Meaning-making 4 – Discover Which Symbols to Draw 5 - Learn How to Draw Them 6 – Clarify Icon Metaphor 7 - Disambiguate through Icon Systems 8 - Integrate Evaluation with Design: 9 – Historic Validation + Redefinition

Editorial Reviews

"There are few - if any - evidence-based books on symbol design. Designing effective icons and symbols is challenging and there are many aspects to consider. The purpose of this book is to change the way we design and think about icons. It offers many key insights and principles in this context. One of the core strengths is that it is research-based and presents a user-centered approach to icon design. It can become an important contribution to the field." —Pia Pedersen, Assistant Professor, Graphic Designer, Centre for Visibility Design, The Royal Danish Academy of Fine Arts

From the Publisher