For this assignment, I chose to analyze the iconography of Red note, a popular mobile app with a wide range of icons, and compare it to Egyptian hieroglyphics. Both systems use visual symbols to communicate ideas, but they do so in very different ways. Let’s look at two specific examples.
The chats icon in Red Note is a simple speech bubble with dots or lines inside it. This symbol is universally understood to represent communication or conversation. It doesn’t require much explanation because the metaphor is clear that a speech bubble equals talk. The idea of messaging or conversation has been communicated through the design. Users need to understand that a speech bubble symbolizes communication, which is a common metaphor in modern digital interfaces. The speech bubble is a metaphor for dialogue, borrowed from comic strips and widely adopted in digital design.
In Egyptian hieroglyphics, the concept of speech or communication was often represented by a glyph of a mouth with lines or symbols coming out of it. Here is the example. The idea of speaking or verbal communication was being used. Users needed to understand the specific glyph and its cultural context. Unlike Red Note’s icon, this symbol wasn’t immediately intuitive, and it required learning the Egyptian writing system.
Both Red note’s icon and the Egyptian hieroglyph are designed to achieve the same idea which is communication. However, the Red note’s icon relies on a widely recognized modern metaphor, while the hieroglyph uses a more literal representation.