Sign O’ The Times

If you had to bury something, say nuclear waste materials that would potentially harm people several millennia from now, how would you go about labeling a waste site now, so that those uncovering it in the future would realize the danger of the site’s contents?

Without using specific words, what symbols would you use to transcend culture and language to form an easily understood warning—in other words, how do you “brand” danger? Once branded, how can you count on a particular symbol’s meaning remaining the same over time, especially considering that associations can change, often with oppositional meanings? Compare the Swastika symbol in the Neolithic, Bronze Age and Iron Age periods—meant to convey peace, welfare or prosperity—with its Western use as a good luck symbol in the 1880s through 1920s, and ultimately its use as the emblem of the Nazi Party and the evil connotation attached to it to this day. A brief audio segment on Studio 360 this past Sunday posed these questions, and pondered how designers and artists can boil signs and symbols down to the bare essentials of what they are trying to convey. Listen to the audio here.

There is a correlation in music as well; specifically in the art of improvising in jazz music. Having studied it for the past 12 years or so, the recurring advice received from masters of the art form always seems to revolve around finding a way to convey the most meaning and emotion using the fewest notes. In other words, working to condense your voice and the musical tools that you use, so that it resonates clearly with the audience. Miles Davis, Ahmad Jamal and Bill Evans were all great examples of rejecting the harmonic acrobatics of the Bebop era and using space and silence as thematic elements in their compositions and improvisations. Davis often remarked that a musician has to know 400 notes that can be played, then pick only the right 4 notes.