Written Language as Information Design

As language systems developed, the structures for these systems began to solidify. Some languages, such as Japanese or Chinese, remained pictographic or iconographic in nature. Other languages, such as English, developed complex phonetic and alphabetic rules. According to Wolfram Eberhard in the book A Dictionary of Chinese Symbols, "Westerners are 'people of the ear' rather than of the eye…Chinese are 'people of the eye'…the characters are symbols, not ways of notating sounds..." (Eberhard, 1986). Image-based languages seem to encompass meaning in different way than languages based on phonetic rules.

The technology for recording these systems also developed so that spoken languages usually became written languages as well. Some languages, and histories, remained primarily spoken, such as some Native American language systems. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, Sumerian script was the earliest writing system. Egyptian hieroglyphs were also created about the same time period and later developed into the first alphabet. After the development of papyrus and parchment as writing surfaces, illustrated manuscripts were created in many parts of the world, combining imagery and text that was both aesthetically pleasing and able to effectively convey messages in the manuscript. Recording the events, beliefs, and transactions of a culture in these manuscripts was historically the domain of skilled scribes and illustrators, the Information Designers of this time period. (Encyclopedia Britannica, 2006). •