10 Levels of Intimacy in Todays Communication

I found this piece of work on www.pleaseenjoy.com and it is the work of designer Ji Lee. He investigated into how the digital age has affected the ways in which we communicate with each other and how it is a lot different with new technologies being continuously developed. He asked himself the question of whether all these new technologies actually bring us together more or infact alienate us a lot more from each other because of the nature of the communication.

I think that the pictograms he has designed captures the levels of intimacy in today’s communication quite well. One way in which the intimacy is shown is through the incorporation of the line that sometimes is shown between the two people. This distinguishes between the people being able to see each other or not, whether it be face to face or on a monitor. So out of the 10 levels on only 2 of them you can actually see the other person you are communicating with and one of them is not even face to face. I suppose this does say a lot about the communication of today and how it takes place on a much less personal level like you are hiding behind a screen or some sort of other technology.

Each of the people are of the same size and placed centrally within the coloured box, showing consistency, as well as a link between each of the pictograms that makes it clear that they are a series. I think that the text does add to the understanding of each of the images. However, I think with some thought I may have been able to work out what most of the pictograms represented, particularly because of the inclusion of the mobile, letter and speech bubble pictograms placed in the middle of the top of each box. The text does speed up this process though.

I think the use of colour within the actual pictograms is simple having the black silhouettes of the people on the white background. This contrast is clear and easy to read, making it legible for the reader. However, I am not so sure about the use of colour to represent each intimacy level. I can see with the facebook and twitter examples (level one and two), that the dark blue colour for facebook and the light blue colour for twitter actually corresponds to the colours of the social networking sites in reality. But looking at the other eight levels the colours do not seem to link with the examples and so are more likely to have been chosen for aesthetics and also to just distinguish between each intimacy level. I think that the way that the colour seems to go from one part of the colour spectrum red to blue, makes the information more aesthetically pleasing but does not add to the understanding of the pictograms.