Symbology for Maps

I’m sure the word you were looking for was symbolism. (Points if you get the reference.) Apologies for yesterday, I was a bit under the weather.

Today we deviate from graphs and things and go to another area of conveying information: symbology. I mean iconography. The BBC featured an article about possible new symbols for maps ahead of the 2020 Olympics when, presumably, lots of foreigners will need maps to get around Tokyo. And so you can imagine that the agency behind the proposed ideas has received a backlash about changing customary Japanese symbols for foreigners.

I combined each of the examples from the article. Each row includes the proposed Japanese version and the foreigner version. See if you can identify them without the word. You can imagine, however, that the focus of the article was upon that first row. The answers are after the credits.

Proposed map symbols
Proposed map symbols

Credit for the original work goes to the Geospatial Information Authority of Japan.

The answers, top to bottom: temple, hotel, church, hospital, post office, police station.

The 76ers Are a Terrible Basketball Team

The Philadelphia 76ers are a terrible basketball team. FiveThirtyEight details the deficiencies of the team in this small table. Icons represent characteristics that can be either positive or negative. They are then placed within the table to quickly show how awful the team is. My favourite is the icon for poor player.

Just terrible
Just terrible

Credit for the piece goes to the FiveThirtyEight graphics department.

Symbology on the Internets

Today I am going to take a day-long step away from data visualisation. The Harvard Business Review recently published a short piece looking at some of the symbolism—I mean symbology clearly—we use on the internets.

The ampersand
The ampersand

Credit for the piece goes to the Harvard Business Review.