Ink Brush Icon

Ink Brush Icon (YouTube Channel)

“Ink Brush Icon” is a YouTube channel created by Joshua Chao, which features the intriguing similarity between modern graphic design and the ancient icon-based written language.

It is shown in the first episode that the road sign “Deer Crossing”, the mobile device system icon “Airplane Mode” and the character “Wood” are all based on the same forming principle: “To draw the visible shape”. They are categorized as “Pictograms”.

It is shown in the second episode that the road sign “Chevron Alignment”, the mobile device system icon “Wi-Fi” and the character “Up” are all based on the same forming principle: “To draw the abstract idea”. They are categorized as “Simple Ideograms”.

There are countless of icons—such as the road signs, the computer system icons, the signage systems in airports, subway stations, hospitals and more—in our daily lives and all around the world. Surprisingly, there is also a four-thousand-year old icon-based language in the world, which has its own icon-forming principles, icon-dictionary and icon-idioms, and it is read, written and spoken by 1.2 billion people around the globe.

This project is a currently discontinued trial run of the new YouTube channel “Iconbelieveit”.