Ubiquitous Icons: Peace, Power, and Happiness
99% Invisible13 Marras 2019

Ubiquitous Icons: Peace, Power, and Happiness

There are symbols all around us that we take for granted, like the lightning strike icon, which indicates that something is high voltage. Or a little campfire to indicate that something is flammable. Those icons are pretty obvious, but there are others that aren't so straightforward. Like, why do a triangle and a stick in a circle indicate "peace"? Where does the smiley face actually come from? Or the power symbol? We sent out the 99PI team to dig into the backstory behind some of those images you see every day.

Ubiquitous Icons: Peace, Power, and Happiness

Subscribe to SiriusXM Podcasts+ to listen to new episodes of 99% Invisible ad-free and a whole week early.

Start a free trial now on Apple Podcasts or by visiting siriusxm.com/podcastsplus.


Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Jaksot(779)

Hard to Love a Brute

Hard to Love a Brute

No matter which James Bond actor is your favorite, it’s undeniable that the Sean Connery films had the best villains. There’s Blofeld, who turned cat-stroking into a thing that super-villains do, and ...

12 Elo 201516min

The Sunshine Hotel

The Sunshine Hotel

The Bowery, in lower Manhattan, is one of New York’s oldest neighborhoods. It’s been through a lot of iterations. In the 1650s, a handful of freed slaves were the neighborhood’s first residents. At th...

5 Elo 201526min

From the Sea, Freedom

From the Sea, Freedom

In 1933, delegates from the United States and fourteen other countries met in Montevideo, Uruguay to define what it means to be a state. The resulting treaty from the Montevideo Convention established...

29 Heinä 201518min

Awareness

Awareness

By the late 1980s, AIDS had been in the United States for almost a decade. AIDS had be the number one killer of young men in New York City, then of young men in the country, then of young men … Contin...

22 Heinä 201516min

On Location

On Location

So many classic movies have been made in downtown Los Angeles. Though many don’t actually take place in downtown Los Angeles. L.A. has played almost every city in the world, thanks to its diverse land...

15 Heinä 201514min

Johnnycab (Automation Paradox, Pt. 2)

Johnnycab (Automation Paradox, Pt. 2)

More than 90% of all automobile accidents are all attributable to human error, for some car industry people, a fully-automated car is a kind of holy grail. However, as automation makes our lives easie...

1 Heinä 201521min

Children of the Magenta (Automation Paradox, pt. 1)

Children of the Magenta (Automation Paradox, pt. 1)

On the evening of May 31, 2009, 216 passengers, three pilots, and nine flight attendants boarded an Airbus 330 in Rio de Janeiro. This flight, Air France 447, was headed across to Paris. Everything pr...

24 Kesä 201528min

Freud’s Couch

Freud’s Couch

Sigmund Freud’s ground-breaking techniques and theories for therapy came to be called “psychoanalysis,” and it was embodied, in practice and popular culture, by a single piece of furniture: the couch....

17 Kesä 201513min

Suosittua kategoriassa Liike-elämä ja talous

sijotuskasti
mimmit-sijoittaa
rss-rahapodi
psykopodiaa-podcast
rss-rahamania
rss-sisalto-kuntoon
ostan-asuntoja-podcast
rss-lahtijat
taloudellinen-mielenrauha
pomojen-suusta
rss-seuraava-potilas
rss-h-asselmoilanen
rss-startup-ministerio
rss-20-30-40-podcast
rss-siksi-viestinta
rahapuhetta
rss-bisnesta-bebeja
rss-inspiroivat-naiset
rss-karon-grilli
rss-vaikuttavan-opettajan-vierella