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McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

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Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#141

Post by nicky0 »

libeclipse wrote: post #36
tbabb wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And they accomplished that, by designing symbols that convey no meaning whatsoever.

Y'all down-voting this but it's true. Of course McDonalds is in an excellent position to slowly give these symbols meaning through constant exposure, but inherently the way they're designed does not convey anything at all. They might as well have just used colours or shapes.

Exactly but what shapes? How about a cross, a six pointed star and a crescent? They are simple and distinctive...

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#142

Post by kalleboo »

salgernon wrote: post #91

Whenever issues like this come up, I like to refer to the WIPP report on how to identify waste containment plants for 10,000 years. http://www.wipp.energy.gov/picsprog/articles/wipp%20exhibit%... In the end, it was determined that there was no guarantee that a re-established civilization could grasp what we were trying to say, and that perhaps just an area earning a reputation as cursed, via attribution of visitors,…

> that perhaps just an area earning a reputation as cursed

So ironically perhaps the best way is to make it actually radioactively poisonous so that people learn that it is a dangerous place...

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#143

Post by kalleboo »

amelius wrote: post #87

So the icon for "fat" is a tape-measure, indicating that "fat" is the bad type of calories that makes you fat ... Was this made by designers, or by actual experts? Or is there malice involved here?

To me the icon for carbs looks like an analog weight scale, carrying the same meaning.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#144

Post by prewett »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #89
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A heretical opinion, but one I agree with. I feel like the success of iOS and Android proves that the world of windows and icons from desktop computers was fine for nerds but ultimately a failure for mainstream use. hell, just look at fabric instruction icons… https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc...

Nothing heretical about it. Many of Earth's greatest civilizations used icons and pictograms. They have all either long since moved away from them (Egypt), or sincerely regret ever having thought of them (China). Icons are the easiest, most economical way to do internationalization. That's really the only reason we still use them at all. They were never about making life easy for the user. Some people initially thoug…

I have never met a Chinese person who regretted the creation of the characters. Rather the opposite... In fact, the characters tended to go phonetic, and every time, the Chinese pushed them back to representing concepts, because that was the only way for the Emperor to communicate within his vast empire of mutually unintelligible dialects.

I'm not sure I would call them either icons or pictograms, though. Some are pictograms, but some are sort of phonetic (category radical + "sounds similar to this other character"), and most are derived in other fashions. Certainly the simplicity of icons is missing.

(But for that matter, the original topic of icons, Christian saints, is missing in all icons. The original icons didn't even express concepts, they expressed people...)

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#145

Post by asdfgadsfgasfdg »

lomnakkus wrote: post #101
commieneko wrote: post #76

The older I get, the more I'm convinced that icons are not a terribly good way to convey information. Some things and concepts, sure. Others, not so much. Especially in technology and science. Navigation can make good use of icons. Left, right, up, down, start, stop, these kinds of things can be learned and used widely. Somethings like text manipulation icons, cursors, insertions, selections, can be used effectively,…

I don't think it's actually that heretical. Most icons are actually quite culture-specific (i.e. mostly "western") even though we like to think otherwise. A lovely example is the "save" icon which depicts a Diskette -- there are few people these days who have actually physically interacted with a Diskette (of whatever circumference). Another favorite of mine is the "random hand gesture (emot)icon". The conventions fo…

> A lovely example is the "save" icon which depicts a Diskette

The biggest problem with the save icon is that some designers have decided to use the large down arrow (which is used by browsers for download) instead of save. Thereby throughly confusing users.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#146

Post by prewett »

Camillo wrote: post #136
Nition wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well the issue would be that it hurts the local population. And maybe you can prevent them from getting hurt, if you try to come up with a good warning.

But there's an opportunity cost. You pay a whole interdisciplinary committee to sit on their asses thinking about it for n weeks (I don't even want to know how long it took). You could take that money and use it on a million other things that would result in a larger reduction of people-getting-hurt.

What would that be? Those million other things that prevent people 1000, 2000, 5000 years from now from getting hurt? A good warning seems like a great idea, and low cost, high impact. Problem is, no language has lasted for 10,000 years.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#147

Post by prewett »

incongruity wrote: post #6
grovegames wrote: post #5

> “We have accomplished our mission: keep the information simple, easy to understand, language-free and top line.” I find this amusing since the first icon is "kcal"... The information is perhaps too simple, as none of these really lets me know what they mean. Without a legend, I wouldn't know what they mean, and if your icons need a legend, then they really aren't doing their job effectively.

Can all things be solely and uniquely communicated by an icon? I'd expect not - it's not so different from the collisions you get with TLAs (Three letter acronyms) On the other hand, is an icon set successful if you can see the label once and then keep it straight without labels in the future? I'd say so and I think this work gets close to doing that.

If McDonald's hadn't copyright/trademarked the icons, maybe. But if McDonald's, Burger King, Wendy's, Applebee's, the US government nutritional publications, etc. all have a different icon set, good luck.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#148

Post by vacri »

shawnz wrote: post #140
vacri wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's exactly the same with letters. There's nothing particularly evocative about the English 'a' in the glyph for it. Even the arrows the OP mentions is learned association.

It's not exactly the same. The icons are mnemonics which are mostly useful when you understand what they are trying to represent. Words on the other hand are totally useless if you don't speak the language they're in. It would be very difficult to memorize a word just by its appearance in comparison to an icon.

There's all sorts of words I can recognise in other languages, despite not speaking them. French, German, Italian, Spanish; all these have more than a handful of words that most fairly literate native English speakers can recognise, even excluding the loan words. We learn them from exposure and association, just like with icons.

Likewise, words are not totally useless if you don't speak the language. I don't speak any of the above languages, but I can still make basic comments like oui/non, ja/nein, etc.

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#149

Post by bevesce- »

owenversteeg wrote: post #85

Okay, I've got a crazy idea. Why not create a combination of words that expresses the thing, instead of these very weird and incomprehensible-at-first-glance icons? For example, for proteins: the word "protein" is understandable in English, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese, Greek and Swedish. The Russian "belok" should be understandable to Polish and Russian speakers, and the Dutch "eiwitten" should be understand…

As a Polish speaker "belok" sounds nothing like "białko" and wouldn't be understandable

Re: McDonald’s Universal Icons for 109 Countries [pdf]

#150

Post by aisofteng »

yoz-y wrote: post #79
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A heretical opinion, but one I agree with. I feel like the success of iOS and Android proves that the world of windows and icons from desktop computers was fine for nerds but ultimately a failure for mainstream use. hell, just look at fabric instruction icons… https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/a0/6b/b9/a06bb91bc...

I feel that the fabric labels are a straw man though. The labels on clothes can be very small. Icons take less place than text and it is trivial to find an explanation of the symbols. Icons have the advantage of being compact. They are accompanied by text when there is place for it, but it can be omitted when there is not. People will have learnt their meaning by then.

That's not what a strawman is. GP just have an example to illustrate a point.
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