Hey, it’s Al Bergeron, Chief Creative Officer of bergeroncreative.com, and this is The Brand Whisperer Briefing, where I provide practical brand strategies that will grow your corporate or personal brands. Giving you greater influence in today’s technology driven society.

On this week’s episode I’m going to discuss pictographs. Here are examples of organizations that use pictographs; the Olympics, the Bronx Zoo, and the National Park Service. Pictographs—sometimes called pictograms—are simplified graphic representations of objects, people, animals and even activities.

For instance, each Olympics develops unique pictographs for sporting events as part their theme branding. Pictographs are used as public symbols for wayfinding, safety and transportation as well as in public spaces like zoos and parks because they can transcend language barriers.

Here are the advantages of pictographs: • Substitute for words • Overcome language barriers • Extension of brand identity

Here are the disadvantages of pictographs: • Confusion with other pictographs • Confusion with other brandmarks • Potential cultural miscommunication

So, your homework for this week is to answer this question, to determine if pictographs would best represent your brand: Does my brand offer products, services, events or other categories that would lend itself to representation by pictographs?

That’s it for this week. Have a great week! On the next episode of The Brand Whisperer I will discuss symbols.