Information exists everywhere like the air we breathe. Often times, however, information is not formatted well and is, in fact disorganized. One way to organize information of course, is to represent it visually. Signs are particularly good examples of how the essence of information maps an environment. In everyday life, we see signs on the streets, on the roads, at school, at work, at home; and wherever we go they provide us with vital information. Even simple coloring, such as red and blue on water faucets indicate hot and cold. Perhaps a more integral coloring system is the red and green in traffic signals that serve as rules for safety. Whether a sign indicates possible danger or differences in water temperature, these signs always communicate information to us. However, these signs suffer from what I would call too much stability - their form and function have remained the same since their creation decades ago, even though our lifestyle has changed through the development of new and emergent technologies, environments and social structures. As it exists, our present ISOTYPE-driven sign system is not integrated with our needs and environment, even as we have expended the energy to memorize them and incorporate them into our lives.
Our environment is constantly changing and technology is transforming the way we communicate and share information. This is especially true with media. Our media environment goes through regular and dramatic changeds. Take, for example, display technologies. We see more and more LCD panels and monitors on streets. More and more, advertisements copy their content directly from television or movies. But too often, we see static signs on dynamic media, a repurposing of forms rather than a rethinking of media. Although the content on TV is rich with meanings, and it provides an efficient mode of information transfer, the benefits of taking advantage of truly dynamic media are overlooked. One of the most positive attributes of dynamic media is its ability to change content freely and show motion. However, we do not use and see the benefits fully due to the limited material. Therefore, I have developed the ASOTYPE to serve as a way to take advantage of the growing proliferation of dynamic media displays. To stress again, one of the key innovations of the ASOTYPEs is that they are capable of changing their contents and visualize information through more intuitive communication.
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