This is a classic case of "Thing in japan". Yes 'wakaba' mark is cool. But the exact same point can be made about a big red L . Far more ubiquitous. Also there are beautiful medieval crests on British Fire engines. I doubt that purely wordless, symbolic system was truly the ultimate pinnacle of operational clarity.

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quadrifoliate 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

I would love to read your article about the beautiful medieval crests on British fire engines, too! No joke, feel free to link something in reply to my comment as well if you have existing articles.

I feel like there has been a lot of unnecessary pushback about 'Thing in Japan' articles on the internet. Guess what, there are cool things everywhere; including Japan. Write about the ones you know about!

	▲	mock-possum an hour ago \| parent [-]
		I think the point is more that nobody thinks weeb content is good except for weebs. Or, if you like, it’s still all just orientalism.

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Symbiote an hour ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yeah, these are not good symbols, except the help mark. None of them have any meaning, they must simply be learned.

I recognize some of them, from seeing them in Japan, but I thought they meant some kind of taxi.

A symbolic ear would be better to designate deafness, a walking stick age.

	▲	pegasus 16 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		> these are not good symbols. None of them have any meaning, they must simply be learned. They are excellent symbols – for the society they arose in, which was at the other extreme of the fragmentation, atomization, attention span erosion we are experiencing today. In their case, choosing esthetics over learning curve totally made sense, because the learning curve was not a concern for them. Our society OTOH cannot afford such niceties.

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raldi an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

I've never heard of a big red L but I've known about the Japanese new-driver icon for decades.

	▲	crossroadsguy 40 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		These things are very local then. That big RED L is the only thing I know about new drivers, learners etc. I even googled what the GP said and I've still no clue what was being talked about. In fact most of the symbols talked about in the article seemed of no meaning to me except looking unique and different and sometimes even nice.