User Manual - ID Badges & ID Cards: Photo ID Systems Software, ID
"ID"ographs
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Transcript of "ID"ographs
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Introduction“ID”OGRAPHS is a drawing activity in which you create your own personally meaningful symbol.
Ideographs are pictures or clusters of pictures that stand for an idea. Among ideographs that stand for human values, many inspiring examples are found in written Chinese:
• A full spectrum of values is expressed.• Pictures are often combined in clever, unexpected
ways.• Chinese characters have undergone many changes over
time. Studying some examples can suggest imaginative ways of visually transforming any rudimentary ideograph.
To start, have a look at some examples from Chinese7
Good Fortune (Page 8)
Long life (Page 9)
Moral rectitude (Page 10)
Charity (Page 14)
Turn to the page number for more info.
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Step 1. Draw six simple pictures:
1. an ordinary use item
2. a living thing in nature
3. an inanimate thing in nature
4. a part of the body
6. something from a day of celebration
5. one or more person(s) you knowKeep it simple! Like cave art.Stick figures! Scribbles!
Pick things that you like!
Creation: Create your own ‘ID”OGRAPH in 5 steps
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Step 2: Choose one picture from Step 1 that could symbolize a personal value. Re-draw it below, and write out a sentence describing what it represents.
a sentence describing a value
Focus on your most closely held values.
E.g. a picture of soap could suggest “I value good hygiene”. A telephone could suggest “I value communicating with people”.
Creation
a picture copied from Step 1
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Step 3:Go back and choose one or two more pictures from Step 1 that could also be connected to your idea. Re-draw them in the box in Step 2, clustering the pictures together.
E.g. adding a picture of an ocean next to a telephone could suggest communicating with faraway friends. (A picture of a rope, a computer, a pen, a person etc. could be connected to this idea too).
Don’t worry for now if the connection between the pictures and your idea is not absolutely clear.
Creation
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Now re-work the way these pictures are combined and re-write the sentence that describes the value they illustrate.
Step 4:
sentence revision
symbol revision
If you’re stuck return to Step 1 and draw a few more simple pictures to incorporate.
Look at examples of Chinese characters for ideas of how to integrate and stylize your symbol.Add, subtract, rearrange, transform. Whatever feels right!
An iterative process of refinement
Creation
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Creation
Draw your finished symbol and write its caption.
Step 5:
Add your design to the gallery! Scan and upload to:www.art-spring.org/IDographs
Use as your online avatar
Use as your signature
Update as you grow!
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Fú
Happiness, good fortune
Wine is offered to household gods in prayer for good fortune.
Pronunciation:
Translation:
Interpretation:
Glossary of Chinese ideographs
Comment:“*” symbolizes a highly cherished idea in traditional Chinese culture. It is a popular decorative motif on household objects, architecture, and all forms of visual art. Consequently it has been rendered in many different ways, often deviating considerably from the basic ideograph.
a wine jug
an altar
two hands
Decorative variants (Used on seals, jewelry,
architectural adornments etc.) 1. an ordinary use item2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body
6. something from a day of celebration
Key
5. one or more person(s) you know
“Bronze”
Clerical Script
Oracle Bone
Modern Script
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Shòu
Long life
An old man’s long hair and cane are indicative of a long life; a walk along a river is a metaphor for one’s life journey.
Comment:Longevity has been expressed as an important cultural value throughout China’s history, and the character “�” is used in a wide variety of decorative motifs and artworks in addition to prose. The hair and walking cane are the same as found in the character for “old” (+). The lower components of the character have more ambiguous derivations and scholars disagree.
Pronunciation:
Translation:
Interpretation:
�Modern Script
the hair on old man’s head a walking cane
a long river
Oracle Bone
footsteps
“Bronze”
Clerical Script
Decorative variants (Used on seals, jewelry,
architectural adornments etc.)
1. an ordinary use item2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body
6. something from a day of celebration
Key
5. one or more person(s) you know
Glossary of Chinese ideographs
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Glossary of Chinese ideographs
Comment:Inspecting a military file along a road may have been the initial context for this symbol, that later became associated with the qualities of the inspector himself, i.e. the military commander. Today “�” has no military connotations, but the ideograph is still effective in conveying a modern-day idea of morality which may be expressed as “seeing straight from one’s heart.”
Pronunciation:
Translation:
Interpretation:
Dé
Virtue, Morality
Rectitude is indicated by an arrow and eye, looking straight across an intersection. The heart suggests interiority or emotional sensibility. Together the symbol stands for inner rectitude, or morality.
�
an arrow pointing up
A crossroads (originally “ ”)
an eye
Oracle Bone“Bronze”
Seal Script
Clerical Script
1. an ordinary use item2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body
6. something from a day of celebration
Key
5. one or more person(s) you know
Modern Script
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a person
XieZhi, a mythical beast
a doorway
water
F!
Law, Lawful
The mythical beast XieZhi was fabled to charge any person who spoke a falsehood. A person exiting through a door, being chased by XieZhi indicates the banishment of falsehood. Water always returns to a level state, which is the desired effect of law on a tumultuous society.
“Bronze”Pronunciation:
Translation:
Interpretation:
Seal Script
Regular Script
Glossary of Chinese ideographs
1. an ordinary use item2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body
6. something from a day of celebration
Key
5. one or more person(s) you know
Comment:The XieZhi component is a pictograph of a symbolic animal, essentially a symbol within a symbol. Ideographs can contain more dense meanings this way, however not many symbols are consistently recognized across cultures and generations. The XieZhi component has been eliminated entirely in the modern script.
�Modern Script
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Pronunciation:
Translation:
Interpretation:
Glossary of Chinese ideographs
Jiào
Education, Teach
A child being beaten on the head with a stick is indicated by cartoon-style “x” marks symbolizing the strike.
Comment:The conceptual logic of this ideograph is clear, but it is a strikingly anachronistic way of expressing the idea of “education.” This is a fine example of how values change over time, and how the cultural expressions of one generation may not satisfy the needs of another.
a child
a hand
a stick
Oracle Bone “Bronze”
Seal Script
�Modern Script
1. an ordinary use item2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body
6. something from a day of celebration5. one or more person(s) you know
Key
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Pronunciation:
Translation:
Interpretation:
Xué
To learn, learning
The “x” is a net which is being fabricated. Learning, like making a net, is a meticulous activity: the finer it is the more that can be apprehended, or caught. The home is an early place of learning, and the child is the home’s most active learner.
Comment:Fabricating a net is an elegant analogy for learning, but how can we be sure this is actually what is represented here? Scholars can research cultural forms that have been passed down through generations for clues, such as the arts, language and so forth. No interpretation is certain however. They should be considered ‘working theories’ in a field of different possibilities.
two hands
a house
a fishing net
Oracle Bone
Glossary of Chinese ideographs
a child
“Bronze”
Seal Script
Regular Script
�Modern Script1. an ordinary use item
2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body
6. something from a day of celebration5. one or more person(s) you know
Key
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Pronunciation:
Translation:
Interpretation:
Glossary of Chinese ideographs
Shàn
Good, Kind, Charitable
The horns of a goat were used for decorative headgear and masks worn on days of celebration, and later the pictograph for goat became a symbol for positive values in general. The horizontal bar on top of the tongues represents the spoken word. Together the symbol suggests two people exchanging words in a positive, mutually supportive spirit.
a goat’s head
two “speech” ideographs comprised of a mouth, extending tongue and horizontal bar
Oracle Bone
Oracle Bone “goat”
Oracle Bone “tongue”
Seal Script
Regular Script
�Modern Script
Comment:This is a good example of how abstract ideas can be expressed by building up connected elements (i.e. mouth + tongue + horizontal bar), while other ideas can be introduced by adding separate elements (i.e. goat).
1. an ordinary use item2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body
6. something from a day of celebration5. one or more person(s) you know
Key
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Pronunciation:
Translation:
Interpretation:
Glossary of Chinese ideographs
B!o
Protect
This is a straightforward ideograph of a mother embracing her child and providing protection from harm.
Comment:The semantic meaning of the modern script has broadened beyond the relationship exemplified by mother and child. %�5environmental protection), �4 (insurance), �/(guarantee) are a few examples. This raises an important question: to what degree do the symbols we use constrain our ideas? In other words, if conveyed through other symbols how might these concepts be differently understood?
a mother with arms outstretched
a child
Oracle Bone “Bronze”
Regular Script
�Modern Script
1. an ordinary use item2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body
6. something from a day of celebration
Key
5. one or more person(s) you know
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Pronunciation:
Translation:
Interpretation:
Glossary of Chinese ideographs
Tàn
Explore
A hand is groping in the darkness of a cave, exploring the unknown surfaces. The marks near the hand may indicate darkness, or to-and-fro movements of the hand itself.
Comment:The modern script incorporates the radical for “hand” on the left, and the hand inside the cave has evolved to resemble the character for wood (�). Such modifications happen for a variety of reasons including deliberate efforts at disambiguation as well as accidental mis-copying by early scribes.
a cave
a hand waving to-and-fro
Oracle Bone “Bronze”
Seal Script
�Modern Script
1. an ordinary use item2. a living thing in nature3. an inanimate thing in nature 4. a part of the body
6. something from a day of celebration
Key
5. one or more person(s) you know
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1. “Oracle Bone” carved shells and bones Shang dynasty (~1400-1050 BCE)
2.Bamboo and wooden slips. Late Shang dynasty through Han dynasty (~1200 BCE to ~400 A.D.)
3.Bronze inscriptions Shang dynasty through Zhou dynasty (~1400 to ~250 BCE)
Appendix - Archeological record of early Chinese scripts
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English-language Chinese etymology resources
Leon Long-yien Chang and Peter Miller. Four thousand years of Chinese calligraphyUniversity of Chicago Press, Chicago:1990
Kenneth G. Henshall. A guide to remembering Japanese charactersCharles E Tuttle: 1988.
“Abstract concept formation in archaic Chinese Script Forms: Some Humboldtian Perspectives”Tze-wan Kwan. Philosophy East & West, University of Hawaii Press, Honolulu. Volume 61, Number 3, July 2011 p409.
Richard Sears’ Online Chinese Etymology http://www.chineseetymology.org
Chinese-language Chinese etymology resources
���,. 1000���(2!�"� : ��&-�= Origin and Evolution of 1,000 Chinese Characters: Collection of Illustrations ��#), ��72005
���,. ��"��'� = Tracing the Roots of Chinese Characters: 500 Cases��0.��#)6��72002
� ,. ��"�31 = Dialogue on the Evolution of Ancient Writing�$#)6��72009
� http://zdic.net/
Appendix - Sources and further reading
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‘ID’ographs is a publication of ARTSpring, a China-based curatorial hub that brings arts practitioners together with organizations that are searching for new ways of carrying out their activities and connecting with people. For more information about ARTSpring programs and publications please visit the website www.art-spring.org.
‘ID’ographs was designed as part of an ongoing workshop series held with a group of university and high-school students in Shanghai. The content and structure of the workshop program is in continual development. Suggestions, submissions, inquiries and collaborations are invited. Please visit www.art-spring.org for updates and to get in touch.
This guide is distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/3.0/).
Author: George Kaye
Acknowledgments:Greg Baines, Art+ CoopJennifer Tang, Art+ CoopLucinda Holmes, Western International School of ShanghaiElke Martini, Elke Martini DesignsZoe Wu, ArtistJianwei Fong, Artist
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