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Screen capture from the Pictooptic website, showing icons for “Empathy”

I had recently stumbled upon my friend Yoonyoung Kim’s feature of Pictooptic, an extension of The Noun Project, an initiative to collect and celebrate the universal language of visual icons, with new icons being submitted to the site every day. With Pictooptic, icons that relate to the entered word are randomly assembled to create these visually fascinating Rorschach-like mirror images. Yoonyoung really enjoyed the “spontaneity and whimsical nature of the generator” and I feel that sums it up perfectly. The generator creates a wonderful blend of playful icons from creators the world over that allows the user to see the striking similarities and fascinating differences that come from condensing a word into a single icon.

Screen capture from the Pictooptic website, showing icons for “Charm”

An introductory video about The Noun Project

Yoonyoung’s Looking Outwards post can be found here, and more information about The Noun Project can be found on their website.