Ubiquitous Icons: Peace, Power, and Happiness
99% Invisible13 Nov 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.

Episoder(789)

The Fever Tree Hunt

The Fever Tree Hunt

Most heists target gold, jewels or cash. This one targeted illegal seeds. As the British established their sprawling empire across the subcontinent and beyond, they encountered a formidable adversary ...

31 Okt 202340min

Model Village

Model Village

For decades, society has dealt with people with dementia and other forms of cognitive decline by storing them away in unstimulating, medicalized environments. But around the world, a new architectural...

24 Okt 202335min

Devolutionary Redesign

Devolutionary Redesign

It’s hard to overstate just how important record album art was to music in the days before people downloaded everything. Visuals were a key part of one's experience with a record or tape or CD. The de...

17 Okt 202331min

You Ain’t Nothin But a Postmark

You Ain’t Nothin But a Postmark

Over a decade after Elvis Presley’s death, the king of rock & roll took over headlines once again as Americans weighed in on which portrait of Elvis would be forever immortalized on a 29 cent US posta...

10 Okt 202332min

The Big Dig

The Big Dig

Over its more than 40 year journey from conception to completion, Boston’s Big Dig massive infrastructure project, which rerouted the central highway in the heart of the city, encountered every hurdle...

3 Okt 202355min

Devil in the Details

Devil in the Details

This week we have two stories featuring the devil.An infamous "training video" teaching cops how to spot and stop "satanic crimes." And a stretch of highway with the misfortune of being officially nam...

26 Sep 202334min

Cautionary Tales of the Sydney Opera House

Cautionary Tales of the Sydney Opera House

The Sydney Opera House is one of the most iconic and distinctive buildings in the world. It took a relative newcomer and architectural outsider to dream it up, but the saga of making this world herita...

19 Sep 202340min

Blood in the Machine

Blood in the Machine

Brian Merchant is a tech reporter, and he'd been covering the industry for years when he started to notice a term that kept coming up. When he wrote a story that was critical of tech, he'd be accused ...

12 Sep 202329min

Populært innen Business og økonomi

stopp-verden
lydartikler-fra-aftenposten
dine-penger-pengeradet
e24-podden
rss-penger-polser-og-politikk
rss-borsmorgen-okonominyhetene
pengepodden-2
pengesnakk
livet-pa-veien-med-jan-erik-larssen
utbytte
morgenkaffen-med-finansavisen
liberal-halvtime
tid-er-penger-en-podcast-med-peter-warren
finansredaksjonen
stormkast-med-valebrokk-stordalen
lederpodden
rss-markedspuls-2
rss-sunn-okonomi
okonomiamatorene
rss-politisk-preik