Designer: Martin
FriedlAbout Poppi
The first Poppi pictograms emerged from my last year task at the Stuttgart Academy of Arts. The self-imposed task was to develop a detailed visual identity for a neighborhood center consisting of logo, posters, brochures and brochures, however likewise a signs system for inside the building. Particularly created signs formed a vital part of the project due to the fact that of my general interest for pictograms, but also in view of non-German-speaking visitors.
Before I began this task I had actually checked out Egypt. It remained in a number of aspects a remarkable journey. Early Egypt culture reveals among the most fascinating and advanced symbolic languages, and it was an extraordinary experience to see those thousands of years of ages ideograms in their initial setting. On the other hand, European visitors to present-day Egypt are not just faced with a foreign language but likewise with letters that do not "talk to them." Even though signposts written in the English language and in Latin letters may be readily available in the centers of big cities or in crucial museums, you are on your own when taking a trip the back roadways or when going to a local Arabian market. When dealing with a language that uses Latin letters you can correctly copy the street name of your destination (even if you do not understand what it says) and hand it to the cabby. When we attempted to do the exact same in Egypt, our sketched Arabic letters might have indicated some insult since the result was a heap of abuses (not understood, however probably deserved) as the chauffeur left us standing in the dust.
Today, everybody has the possibility of crossing linguistic borders, either with inexpensive flight tickets or through present-day communication technology. This offered me the concept to establish a detailed image-based language including all areas of daily life, enabling communication beyond linguistic barriers. (Okay, it's an enthusiastic job, however even the old Egyptians needed to begin with a couple of pictograms. Plus, that last year job at the Stuttgart Academy of Arts was never finished.)
.How they were made
.In the start, whenever I saw a things that I believed would make an intriguing icon, I produced a little pencil sketch on paper, scanned it, and re-constructed it in Freehand. I then exported the file into Fontographer and worked to best the details. However after numerous icons, and many hours of work, the process altered, and most importantly, I finally found out how to handle the duality of my home and workplace.
.Friends and loved ones tend to think that as long as no cursor is blinking on the computer screen in my living room, my mind is with them and not with my work. I more than happy to leave them to their belief. Bit do they know that I now view my environments as a system of signs. No detour of sketching, scanning, and restoration is required anymore. An icon might be produced in the living space with my computer system turned off. I may have an unwinded weekend with my loved ones and, on Monday, the only task left is to digitize the last variation I designed in my mind. Developing these icons has become second nature to me.
.The decision of which icons to include was initially a pragmatic one. To begin with, there were the existing icons from my incomplete final year job. Then, it appeared reasonable to match typical informational pictogram sets with needs, such as letter, phone or fax. However, I wished to exceed the obvious, to other locations of daily life. I wished to explore the potential of an image-based language and ask: "might it be possible to buy a City ticked in Cairo without requiring assistance, or to compose instructions for making use of a mobile phone, without a single composed word?" Poppi is the primary step towards offering the answer.
.—— Martin Friedl
.Font Family:
