> Most people don't know, so they are not bothered. That's why this symbol works the way it is - it would not work, if everyone recognizes it as "dead butterfly

> Most people don't know, so they are not bothered. That's why this symbol works the way it is - it would not work, if everyone recognizes it as "dead butterfly". Yes-- symbol meanings are even more malleable and imprecise than English words, and on top of that, each of us interprets it through our distorted lenses formed by life experiences, cultures, priorities, successes, traumas, etc. Without being able to design for individual people, you can only try to design for specific groups or communities, and you always risk alienating people for whom the message lands differently. To get a little more info about some more involved communities' usage of these symbols, I did a quick google image search for some related terms, like "Lepidopterist Symposium" and "Butterfly Expert," and got these references: This person holding up the hand-painted sign for their monarch butterfly preserve: https://www.sonomanews.com/article/entertainment/return-of-the-western-monarch-butterfly-at-artefact-design-salvage/ https://www.sonomanews.com/article/entertainment/return-of-t... This proudly displayed Lepidopterist society T-shirt: http://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad//blogfiles/62301_original.jpg http://ucanr.edu/blogs/bugsquad//blogfiles/62301_original.jp... The signage for this Lepidopterist conference: https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/56/2023/11/acentropines.jpg https://www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/5... I didn't see anything indicating the people in these photographs were unrepresentative. In this situation, I'm pretty confident that very few people see "dead butterflies" when they see a butterfly symbol that references one-- even people that absolutely know the difference.