Few things last long. Especially symbols. The ‘Jolly Roger’ is an example. There was a time when an image of ‘skull and crossbones’ was associated with death, pirates, and poison. But today, this symbol elicits associations related to treasure, blockbuster movies, and Halloween. An ominous symbol has changed to an icon that evokes ‘fun’ and ‘playfulness’.[1]
Visual communicators face the challenge of designing symbols with enduring meanings. In 1966, to communicate the ‘danger’ of biohazards, a group of designers and engineers at Dow Chemicals conceived arbitrary icons that scored high on memorability but low on meaningfulness. A symbol that is memorable but conveys no meaning can be invested with any meaning. And the familiar biohazard symbol was born.[2]
Today, we are surrounded by a barrage of visual communication: logos, posters, advertisements, signages for wayfinding, social media posts, and mobile applications with various icons and graphic interactions. Amidst this visual saturation, developing immutable symbols and icons that communicate ‘universal’ ideas has assumed tremendous significance. One such visual expression that is now becoming ‘universally’ recognised is the SDG icons.
The Icons Communicating the Sustainable Development Goals
It has been a decade since the UN adopted the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. On the website of the UN, it is mentioned [3]
“The 17 SDGs, the cornerstone of the Agenda, offer the most practical and effective pathway to tackle the causes of violent conflict, human rights abuses, climate change, and environmental degradation and aim to ensure that no one will be left behind. The SDGs reflect an understanding that sustainable development everywhere must integrate economic growth, social well-being, and environmental protection.”
The UN is promulgating the 17 SDGs as a ‘universal’ framework to achieve ‘sustainable development’. This demands an unambiguous visual language that ‘universally’ communicates each of the 17 SDGs. This article draws attention to the visual communication of two such SDGs:
1. Goal 14: Life Below Water
2. Goal 15: Life on Land
Here are the icons for Goal 14 and Goal 15:
The protection of aquatic life and terrestrial life has been bifurcated into two distinct goals. ‘Life below water’ is depicted by two curved lines and a fish on a blue background. ‘Life on Land’ is represented by a green background, two straight lines; above them are birds in flight and a tree. The two differently colour-coded icons, like the other icons denoting various SDGs, are meant to disseminate the goals and make an imprint in the minds of a global audience. Moreover, the SDG logo, colour wheel, and icons for each goal (web and print versions) can be downloaded for free and used (based on official guidelines [4]) by governmental, not-for-profit, and private sector organisations [5].
In other words, the 17 SDG icons visually articulate a grand narrative of ‘sustainability’, a grand narrative that needs ‘universal’ acceptance. While the 17 goals are concepts or ideas, their icons make the ideas perceptible in a certain manner. This raises a few questions. Are the icons of goals 14 and 15 widely disseminating the notion that ‘life on land’ and ‘life on water’ are to be perceived as ‘two’ categories? Do all cultures see land and water as being ‘separate’? Can such a framework for sustainable development be ‘universal’? Shouldn’t the icons show ‘life below water’ and ‘life on land’ as an inextricable symbiosis?
With the advent of geography and cartography, a worldview that land must be serviced by water has become pervasive. For example, a ‘river’ is conceptualised as a ‘line’ that has an ‘origin’, a ‘flow’ and a ‘course’. Rivers are products of visual literacy, the literacy of the drawn line ‘separating’ land from water (Da Cunha, 2018). The notion here is that land is to be serviced by water for various development objectives like agriculture, industrial mass production, generation of power, and also for exhibiting scenic coastlines. Such a worldview has fostered a ‘drain’ imagination, paving the way for interventions like channelling, dams, dikes and embankments that contain and calibrate the flow of water. This is because any instance of water erasing the ‘line’ that separates land and water is a ‘breach’ or ‘encroachment’. The hard division of land and water is a worldview whose pitfalls are exposed by recurring floods and other natural disasters caused by interventions that make it difficult for water to soak in the land.
However, some cultures uphold a ‘rain imagination.’ Such cultures do not perceive land as being separate from water. These cultures perceive a ubiquitous ‘wetness’, where land is always enveloped by ‘wetness.’ While ‘linear river literacy’ privileges a moment in the hydrological cycle where there is an apparent ‘flow’, cultures that uphold wetness have an all-encompassing view where water is precipitating, seeping, collecting, evaporating, transpiring, and soaking air, soil, and vegetation. Such a view of ‘wetness’ does not lend itself easily to ‘imageability.’ For such cultures, land inheres in wetness. Land and wetness are not dichotomous. A ‘rain’ imagination and a ‘drain’ imagination are incompatible.
When Herodotus, the Greek historian and geographer, asked the indigenous people of Egypt about the Nile’s flooding, they had no answer. Because the Egyptians perceived the Nile’s expansion as a source of life and fertility. For them, the Nile’s expansion and contraction were natural.[6] The indigenous people of Egypt knew how to adapt their settlement to the rhythm of the Nile. Similarly, while cartographers and the colonial empire saw the ‘Ganges’ as a river whose flow is to be controlled, the indigenous people of India saw ‘Ganga’ as a rain terrain that does not conform to the line of separation, containment, and calibration (Da Cunha, 2019). Da Cunha contends that the Janapadas were closely attuned to seasonal rains and water cycles. During the monsoons, they moved to higher ground, and as the waters receded, they returned to the basin areas to resume their activities. They saw rainwater as Sindhu and adapted their way of life to its rhythm. These are cultures that do not delineate land and water. They perceive ecosystems which are ‘a ubiquitous wetness’ in which rain is held in soil, aquifers, glaciers, snowfields, building materials, agricultural fields, air, and even plants and animals (Da Cunha, 2019). After a major flood, the Meuse ‘river’ in the Netherlands was allowed to reclaim its floodplains on land[7]. This led to reduced flooding events. The positive effects of such a model can be experienced in warmer seasons also. When water is held inland in marshes and wetlands, it supports life during droughts and reduces the likelihood of wildfires. In Britain, measures like making storage ponds, ‘leaky’ dams made out of logs and branches, and re-wilding of ‘rivers’ are being adopted to disperse water inland and prevent its sudden upsurge. All of these are examples indicating a transition to a model where land and water are perceived along a gradient.
The Indian season of rains, monsoon, derived from the Arab word mausem, or mosum for wind (or weather) (Rao, 2021), conveys the idea of rain as a terrain that privileges all-pervasive wetness. This is unlike the ‘linear’ river literacy that cartographically separates land and water. For such cultures that uphold a rain imagination, the tree and the birds in the SDG 15 icon are containers of wetness! Could the SDG 15 icon for ‘life on land’ also depict wetness?
To sum up, the intention of the UN to promote the 17 SDGs as a framework for synergising sustainability efforts is laudable. However, the wide visual dissemination of the goals might inadvertently reinforce notions of sustainability that are not ‘universal.’ As the adage goes, a picture speaks a thousand words. The current SDG icons are potent and they have been gaining popularity the world over. However, if one of the functions of the SDG icons is to make ideas of sustainability conspicuous and acceptable in the public sphere, visual communicators must critically reflect on the denotative and connotative aspects of the SDG icons. Otherwise, just like the ‘Jolly Roger’ that is not dreadful anymore, the SDG icons that ought to evoke enduring ideas of sustainability might lose their ‘meanings.’
References
Da Cunha, Dilip. "River literacy and the challenge of a rain terrain." Critical Humanities from India. Routledge India, 2018. 177-204.
Da Cunha, Dilip. "The invention of rivers: Alexander's eye and Ganga's descent." Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019.
Rao, D. Venkat. "Performative Reflections of Indian Traditions: Towards a Liveable Learning." Springer Nature, 2021.
It’s Complicated. "Why rivers shouldn't look like this", Youtube, 26 January 2023, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkmJRJaPBXE/
Kohlstedt, Kurt. "Beyond Biohazard: Why danger symbols can't last forever", 99%Invisible, 26 January 2018, https://99percentinvisible.org/article/beyond-biohazard-danger-symbols-cant-last-forever/
Bethany institutions. "The Fluid Dynamics of Place: Revisiting the Concepts of Rivers and Rain with Dilip da Cunha", 29 July 2024, https://bethanyinstitutions.edu.in/blogs/the-fluid-dynamics-of-place-dilipdacunha/
https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/
[1] https://99percentinvisible.org/article/beyond-biohazard-danger-symbols-cant-last-forever/
[2] https://99percentinvisible.org/article/beyond-biohazard-danger-symbols-cant-last-forever/
[3] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/development-agenda/
[4]https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/wpcontent/uploads/2019/01/SDG_Guidelines_AUG_2019_Final.pdf
[5] https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/news/communications-material/
[6] https://bethanyinstitutions.edu.in/blogs/the-fluid-dynamics-of-place-dilipdacunha/
[7] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkmJRJaPBXE
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