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That should be the right take, if it had no other connotations. For instance heart becoming ♡ is fine I think because we otherwise don't deal with raw hearts a

That should be the right take, if it had no other connotations. For instance heart becoming ♡ is fine I think because we otherwise don't deal with raw hearts and they're only part of whole. It would be another issue if used the equivalent of the zombie emoji for "human" or a steak image for "cow" I guess it comes down to how much we care about butterflies, how often we see them, and how much we don't want them dead. I can see why people looking more at butterflies in their daily lives could be bothered, and also how that's probably a lost cause as 10x more people massively never leave cities.

lisper 3y ago
> zombie emoji for "human" or a steak image for "cow" I think a better analogy is Vetruvian Man [1]. In fact, I think it's a pretty good analogy because it shows a human splayed out in almost exactly the same unnatural way that canonical dead butterflies are. Personally, I don't find either one particularly disturbing. Each serves a purpose IMHO. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man
lukan 3y ago
"I guess it comes down to how much we care about butterflies, how often we see them, and how much we don't want them dead." For me it comes down to how much we care about reality, vs. catering to our fantasy conception of what reality is. Fantasy in general is awesome - if you are aware that is is fantasy. But too many people mixed both concepts and this is bothering me, not particular butterflies. I think nobody thinks, a real heart looks like ♡. But people do think, butterflies look in real life, like when they are dead. It is a quite trivial thing here, but the same happens with much more important things as well.
- makeitdouble 3y ago
  I agree with your point, and think it's also a complicated approach. The best way to put it could be that people having more knowledge of the world is better. For context, some people probably don't really have an image of how a heart is shaped. There was half of a joke about city kids who thought cows were purple because of the chocolate brand [0], and they probably never saw a cow in actual life nor really registered the colors in the books. And IMHO the best solution would be for them to see cows, and the pigs, and so many more animals everywhere. I kinda see the butterfly in the same way. The common icon being dead isn't great, but if we look at it as a symptom of a greater issue (I think we agree on this point) getting people to care more about butterflies in general would also solve the icon problem -- I'd actually want to see butterflies in the middle of cities. There would need so many things to change, but it would be for the better. Otherwise it becomes an endless battle as new icons are created everyday. [0] https://chocolatemarketaudit.wordpress.com/2018/10/26/the-story-of-a-purple-cow-milka/ https://chocolatemarketaudit.wordpress.com/2018/10/26/the-st... PS; this also reminds me of the wheelchair icon and the fight to have it rolling instead of static. And I was moved by the pitch for this idea, while also thinking "there's so few people in contact with wheelchair people in everyday life, will that message ever get a wide enough audience ?"
- chefandy 3y ago
  It’s not fantasy, it’s an abstract idea represented by that visual symbol. The ♡ symbol, for example, pictorially represents a naive understanding of a heart, but the connotation of love— itself not accurate— is the real message. We don’t say someone had a “♡ attack” merely because we’re don’t think the symbol is accurate enough, it doesn’t jibe with the real meaning of that symbol. We also don’t assume MacBook Pros are fruit storage containers. Those symbols are *everywhere * in our lives. Check out triadic semiotics.
  - lukan 3y ago
    But the ♡ and the apple in Apple are clearly abstracted. Those butterflies in the article look real. That makes the difference to me, because it brings a wrong conception of reality. "triadic semiotics" But I learned a new concept, so thanks for that.
    - chefandy 3y ago
      But it's not any specific facet of their form that distinguishes it from communicating an idea vs something physical about the represented object -- it's the context and the intended message. Nobody puts a butterfly decoration on a pillow to say "there's an actual butterfly on the pillow," or say something about that butterfly's physical disposition. They're using the idea of a butterfly, generically, to evoke appreciation for the intricate beauty in natural patterns, life, warm months, spring, symmetry, insects, and/or any other connotation inherent to butterflies which will probably change based on the context and specific representation. When deployed for communication tasks like that-- as emoji are-- they need to evoke the idea of something rather than portraying an actual instance of that thing, so having an immediately recognizable form, most importantly its profile or silhouette, is far more important than physical accuracy. In fact, physical accuracy often requires more visual complexity, increasing the cognitive load to parse it, which makes it worse at its actual job for little to no benefit. Even heavily abstracted symbols may need to communicate a specific physical disposition. Consider the door-open indicator on a car. It's not a physically accurate-- it doesn't need to portray anything except "this is a car, this door is open"-- and it would probably be less effective if it tried to be. But since the physical disposition of the door is important and you're not just evoking the idea of a car, it must be included. For illustrating stories about a butterfly, or using a photo to reference a butterfly doing something specific, or trying to illustrate something else about the physicality of butterflies, then sure... that physical accuracy is important. But the author doesn't make, or even seem to understand that distinction. Yeah, semiotics is a pretty neat topic even if the available literature skews dense. How well a designer wields those concepts to solve communication problems without words is one of the things that distinguish novices from juniors, and juniors from art directors.

lisper 3y ago

> zombie emoji for "human" or a steak image for "cow" I think a better analogy is Vetruvian Man [1]. In fact, I think it's a pretty good analogy because it shows a human splayed out in almost exactly the same unnatural way that canonical dead butterflies are. Personally, I don't find either one particularly disturbing. Each serves a purpose IMHO. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vitruvian_Man

lukan 3y ago

"I guess it comes down to how much we care about butterflies, how often we see them, and how much we don't want them dead." For me it comes down to how much we care about reality, vs. catering to our fantasy conception of what reality is. Fantasy in general is awesome - if you are aware that is is fantasy. But too many people mixed both concepts and this is bothering me, not particular butterflies. I think nobody thinks, a real heart looks like ♡. But people do think, butterflies look in real life, like when they are dead. It is a quite trivial thing here, but the same happens with much more important things as well.

makeitdouble 3y ago
I agree with your point, and think it's also a complicated approach. The best way to put it could be that people having more knowledge of the world is better. For context, some people probably don't really have an image of how a heart is shaped. There was half of a joke about city kids who thought cows were purple because of the chocolate brand [0], and they probably never saw a cow in actual life nor really registered the colors in the books. And IMHO the best solution would be for them to see cows, and the pigs, and so many more animals everywhere. I kinda see the butterfly in the same way. The common icon being dead isn't great, but if we look at it as a symptom of a greater issue (I think we agree on this point) getting people to care more about butterflies in general would also solve the icon problem -- I'd actually want to see butterflies in the middle of cities. There would need so many things to change, but it would be for the better. Otherwise it becomes an endless battle as new icons are created everyday. [0] https://chocolatemarketaudit.wordpress.com/2018/10/26/the-story-of-a-purple-cow-milka/ https://chocolatemarketaudit.wordpress.com/2018/10/26/the-st... PS; this also reminds me of the wheelchair icon and the fight to have it rolling instead of static. And I was moved by the pitch for this idea, while also thinking "there's so few people in contact with wheelchair people in everyday life, will that message ever get a wide enough audience ?"
chefandy 3y ago
It’s not fantasy, it’s an abstract idea represented by that visual symbol. The ♡ symbol, for example, pictorially represents a naive understanding of a heart, but the connotation of love— itself not accurate— is the real message. We don’t say someone had a “♡ attack” merely because we’re don’t think the symbol is accurate enough, it doesn’t jibe with the real meaning of that symbol. We also don’t assume MacBook Pros are fruit storage containers. Those symbols are *everywhere * in our lives. Check out triadic semiotics.
- lukan 3y ago
  But the ♡ and the apple in Apple are clearly abstracted. Those butterflies in the article look real. That makes the difference to me, because it brings a wrong conception of reality. "triadic semiotics" But I learned a new concept, so thanks for that.
  - chefandy 3y ago
    But it's not any specific facet of their form that distinguishes it from communicating an idea vs something physical about the represented object -- it's the context and the intended message. Nobody puts a butterfly decoration on a pillow to say "there's an actual butterfly on the pillow," or say something about that butterfly's physical disposition. They're using the idea of a butterfly, generically, to evoke appreciation for the intricate beauty in natural patterns, life, warm months, spring, symmetry, insects, and/or any other connotation inherent to butterflies which will probably change based on the context and specific representation. When deployed for communication tasks like that-- as emoji are-- they need to evoke the idea of something rather than portraying an actual instance of that thing, so having an immediately recognizable form, most importantly its profile or silhouette, is far more important than physical accuracy. In fact, physical accuracy often requires more visual complexity, increasing the cognitive load to parse it, which makes it worse at its actual job for little to no benefit. Even heavily abstracted symbols may need to communicate a specific physical disposition. Consider the door-open indicator on a car. It's not a physically accurate-- it doesn't need to portray anything except "this is a car, this door is open"-- and it would probably be less effective if it tried to be. But since the physical disposition of the door is important and you're not just evoking the idea of a car, it must be included. For illustrating stories about a butterfly, or using a photo to reference a butterfly doing something specific, or trying to illustrate something else about the physicality of butterflies, then sure... that physical accuracy is important. But the author doesn't make, or even seem to understand that distinction. Yeah, semiotics is a pretty neat topic even if the available literature skews dense. How well a designer wields those concepts to solve communication problems without words is one of the things that distinguish novices from juniors, and juniors from art directors.