1-Bit Icon Design vs Pictogram System
1ビットアイコン / 案内用ピクトグラム
1-Bit Icon Design comes from UI Expression and Pictogram System from Information Design. One is technique and the other style. They are reached for with some of the same intent, which is where they get confused.
1-Bit Icon Design
The way of drawing icons in nothing but black and white that Susan Kare established for the Macintosh. She worked each design out on graph paper with one square standing for one pixel, and restated commands as ordinary objects, a pair of scissors for cutting and a bin for deleting, so the set could be read without a caption in any country. Her sketchbook now sits in a museum collection.
Pictogram System
Unified symbol systems that name facilities and actions without language. Tokyo 1964 systematized sport and wayfinding symbols; the AIGA/DOT transportation set became the public-domain world standard.
| 1-Bit Icon Design | Pictogram System | |
|---|---|---|
| Era | 1982–1990s | 1964– |
| Family | UI Expression | Information Design |
| Kind | Technique | Style |
| Cues | Two values only, black and white, with gray standing in as a checkerboard of alternating dots / A one pixel outline closing each shape, and an interior that is either solid or dotted, never shaded / Ordinary objects, scissors, a bin, a sheet of paper, standing in as the names of commands / Visible traces of one dot placed per grid square, so diagonals break into steps | Geometrized human figures / Uniform stroke weight / Consistency as a system / Independence from language |
| Best used for | Making small pictorial signs stand for commands with no caption, and read the same way in any language · Getting shapes to stay distinguishable inside a small frame that cannot be scaled or smoothed | Guiding visitors of many languages through a venue without words · Turning facility or sport categories into marks legible from a distance |
| Type | Keep letters out of the picture and put the label on a separate line outside it. Any type alongside sits on the same bitmap grid, with no italics and no ornament. | Draw every mark on one grid and stroke weight, human proportions shared |
| Composition | Rule the grid first and draw with one square standing for one pixel. Close the outline before deciding the interior, and leave one square of clearance inside the frame. | Fit all symbols to a square frame with matched margins and optical center |
| Material | Two colours only, black and white. When a middle brightness is needed, build it by thinning the dots into a checkerboard rather than introducing gray. Leave diagonals as steps and do not smooth them. | Single color silhouettes, minimum size and viewing distance decided first |
| Caution | Adding gray or midtones to widen the range costs you the hard outline that only two values can produce, and the shape stops being legible at the size it is actually used. | Drawing each mark as a picture lets stroke and proportion drift, the set stops reading as a system, and meanings swap at a distance. |