Anyone who studies language knows of the intimate between symbols and letters, images and words. Egyptian hieroglyphs are the most recognized “ancient” language where those lines are blurred; the logosyllabic writing system of the Chinese and Japanese the familiar modern example (at least for Westerners).

The Web, however, is known for words. For all the fuss over graphic design and pictures, the Web runs on words. Lately, there has been a push by site designers for larger type size for copy (16 Pixels for Body Copy by Smashing Magazine is a good example). So that connection between image and language seems tenuous.

However, when I scroll down my columns of twitter lists, what I scan for is the icons of the users I know.

When I first started thinking about this, my mind jumped to the Chi Rho design, an icon that has been in use for nearly two thousand years by Christians as an “icon” to mark their books and paintings and murals. Like a chop which represents a person, it is an identifier with a specific meaning, and one does not have to be literate to understand what it signifies.

Then I read Joe Konrath’s blog JA Konrath vs. Stephen King in which he gives several examples of “animated book covers” which are, really, just animated .gif icons. His argument is that these icons acting as book covers are the first, immediate relationship people have to an ebook. These are what are scanned over on Amazon or GoodReads when people look for books. The words (summaries, reviews) come second.

I’ve been in online fandom for over five years now, and icons there are nearly a fetish with fans. On LiveJournal, some people 200-1000 icons to represent every mood, thought, or obsession they have. The icons they use are intimately tied to the user, and as on twitter or facebook, it is easy to scan a long reading page for the people you know by looking for icons. Changing my own user icon across platforms was a huge deal, both in time and effort and reaction; some people lost me for a day before they realized I had a new “text” to identify me.

I’m not sure where this is going, really, except to try to link up a concept we are very familiar with, which is a symbol as text (the Chi Rho, or the Zodiac signs) with the emergence of icons as texts themselves.

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