PIKTOGRAF DESIGN STUDIO // CHICAGO » piktograf-admin

Piktograf Print Lab Has ARRIVED!!!

piktograf-admin — Wed, 30 Apr 2014 20:30:07 +0000

Our brand spanking new print gear just arrived from Seattle. We cant wait to get our print lab up and running this week. Check back for feature posts detailing our printing process and experiments.

NEW PIKTOGRAF WEBSITE!

piktograf-admin — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 20:03:02 +0000

We are very excited to unveil a new look for piktograf.com. We have some exciting plans for our new site that we hope to share very soon. In the mean time enjoy the new site.

Experiments with OPEN-GL

piktograf-admin — Fri, 28 Mar 2014 22:35:04 +0000

In this project we created a real time splash animation using open GL and an experimental framework for 3d graphics and glitch animation created by Chicago media artist nick Briz Check out his youtube channel and tutuorials. We cant wait to dive deeper in our animation experiments. Check out the link HERE

ANCIENT PIKTOGRAFS in the NEWS!

piktograf-admin — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:07:01 +0000

Pictographs are EVERYWHERE, and have been for thousands of years. We just came across a recent article about the famous panther cave pictographs along the US and Mexico border. If ancient Pictographs are still communicating an authors message thousands of years later, imagine what a Piktograf can do for you today. Read all about it (via Houston Chronicle):

“Panther Cave, among the best known of several hundred prehistoric pictograph sites that dot the rugged canyons along the US-Mexico border, is being scanned with lasers to produce a high-resolution 3-D image in efforts to gauge the mural’s deterioration and detect images long ago erased by Mother Nature. They hope the project will help them preserve and decipher one of the oldest stories in North America.

“They are ancient texts, not just drawing on walls,” says Carolyn Boyd, head of the Shumla School, an archeological research center working with state and federal agencies on the project. “We have knowledge now that these paintings are far more than graffiti. And with knowledge comes responsibility — a responsibility to take care of it.”

So what’s a Piktograf anyway?

piktograf-admin — Mon, 13 May 2013 19:05:59 +0000

Good question. Beyond being an innovative new design studio, Piktograf Design is actually a riff on the term pictograph. A pictograph is an image that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Like the man on the mens room sign.

Pictographs were actually considered one of the earliest forms on non verbal communication and the earliest examples of pictographs include ancient drawings found in caves and on rock walls. They have continued to be used through out history because of their ability to transcend traditional written and spoken language. Pictographs are designed in that they can communicate to foreign speakers equally effectively, even if the languages and cultures are completely different. This is why road signs and similar pictographic material are often applied as global standards expected to be understood by nearly all.

You interact with pictographs 1000 times a day and never realize it. The sign on a mens room, thats a pictograph. Cross walk signs, no smoking signs, all pictographs telling you what to do and not do. Yes the pictograph is everywhere and secretly running the world.

Oh I get it, but why name your company that?

The pictograph is considered one of the most elemental and elegant forms in design and truly embodies the spirit of our design aesthetic: simple, clean, instantly recognizable, and universally understandable. We take these qualities and weave them into each and every project that comes our way. Our business is about effectively communicating our clients message to the world and we achieve that in the spirit of the mighty pictograph.