hyper-correct graphic design

[gfish]

Last night I was walking by the Apple store in Oakridge Mall, and I noticed the pair of very prominent Rutherford-style atomic symbols glowing above the "Genius Bar". And it struck me as very ironic, that they would use a fundamentally incorrect model of the atom to symbolize genius.

"Ha ha", I said, "Isn't Apple silly?"

But that got me thinking -- why do we still use the Rutherford model symbol everywhere? Why haven't we come up with an iconic representation of electron orbitals? Surely a truly advanced civilization would be more correct in its iconography. (Yes, I'm still waiting for everyone to learn a sensible conlang, too.) If I was rich, I would totally fund an institute to work on improving this state of affairs.

Comments

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Well, mostly I just meant that anything other than simple Latin is a pain in the ass. Using a syllabary might be a good idea, since that does seem to be the absolute human standard with the weird exception of the Phoenicians and the historical quirk that Europe borrowed from them. I've always heard good things about Hangul, but I've never gotten around to learning it.

[caladri.livejournal.com]

Hm, I don't think "absolute human standard with the weird exception of the Phoenicians" is really all that meaningful given that the vast majority of writing systems are descended from Phoenician. Most of the world's population uses those, too. In terms of all of human history, I don't know. I like syllabaries, but I can't think of that many examples that have a really large number of users outside China and, if you want to count abugidas, India.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Not if you're going by number of (modern) users, no. Obviously alphabets rule, by that metric. But to the best of my knowledge -- and I'm a pretty big lexicographic nerd -- literally every other writing system not directly descended from the Phoenecians has been a syllabary (or a syllabary plus ideograms).

[caladri.livejournal.com]

Some of those syllabaries have been turned into abjads and alphabets over the years, though, and some modern constructed writing systems take inspiration from the Latin alphabet to form syllabaries. I'm not sure that the set of things in the state they were in when first invented, excluding their descendants, is a good way to divine a meaningful absolute human standard. I'd love to have a timeline showing the writing systems in use and their lineage, colored by type, and scaled by number of users.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Though, with China and India solidly on the syllabary/ideogram side of things, I'm not sure alphabets have the majority...

[caladri.livejournal.com]

Depends how you measure people who know more than one. A large percentage of people in China know the English alphabet, there are sizable minorities who use other abjads and alphabets. The majority of India knows the English alphabet, and many use other abjads and alphabets alongside an abugida.