It is highly likely that images were being created before words formally were, that the image of a buffalo portrayed by human hand was being accepted before the word for it was, for example. And so, continuing from that, its safe to say that the image has had far more time to be developed and recognized by human beings than the look, sound and nature of any given languages word for the subject itself. This is why I believe the typography commonly involved in such things as advertisements and graphics is such an interesting and likeable venture, as it tries to overcome the historical bias stacked against the written word, but necessary by those who wish to make certain words known to people for various reasons. Typography has transformed over time, to in certain respects, become the art of turning words into actual recognizable images. An example that I can provide are these:
All three of those images were maps of countries, one being of Haiti, and the other two being of the United States of America in totality. These images are composed of type, based on major locations in the respective countries and placed in the area of which they represent in respect to the geographic location. The Haitian map is crafted by the names of the country's major cities, the black type map of the US is composed of the names of all 50 states with the type even mimicking the shape of the state it represents, and the final map is a composite of all the native american names of American cities translated into english. These maps utilize less than recognizable images, and couple them with the more well known words that are related to the same subject, and through creativity describes the unity of a country in various ways.
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