Symbol ’24
Icons for Society:
Past, Present and Future 

An Exploration of 40 years of Symbol Culture

19/20 September 2024

A virtual conference supported by the British Academy and The Wellcome Trust, organised by The Symbol Group

2024 sees the 40th anniversary of Susan Kare's designs for Apple Macintosh's groundbreaking screen icons and 42 years since Scott Fahlman introduced his joke markers made from punctuation (Emoticons). Few could have predicted how much a part of our everyday life that emojis, emoticons, and icons would become. It is hard to fully comprehend the far-reaching extent to which they are now used to facilitate communication in areas such as science, healthcare and medicine. This two-day conference will bring together academics, researchers, historians and design practitioners working across a wide range of industries to present research and applications showing how icons are used to communicate within their areas of expertise, and debate the future of icons on screen, in print and in the environment. A key consideration will be to identify and share good practice in multi-media design, AR/VR, AI/UX and fine art to best serve our wide audiences.