45 Symbols - Clay to Code

How can research findings, personal experiences, and complex ideas be translated into a concise visual identity?

45 Symbols—Clay to Code examines how emerging artists and designers develop systematic approaches to a visual language, inspired by one of the most enigmatic objects in media history: the 3,700-year-old, still-undeciphered Phaistos Disc, embossed with 45 distinct symbols. The works present a range from personal narratives to global themes and demonstrate how an original visual grammar can be constructed.

Over more than a decade, the internationally hosted design seminar series The Phaistos Project—Forty-five Symbols have evolved into a global community—driven by open calls, workshops, exhibitions, and risograph publications. This volume, 45 Symbols—Clay to Code, brings together over 2,000 symbols as the result of this collaborative endeavor. It stands not only as a living archive of research inquiries but also as a testament to collective experimentation, bold visions, and the expression of intercultural dialogue.

The contributions are organized into five thematic fields:

I. Traces of everyday life, material culture, and the domestic archive
II. Planetary surfaces, landscape as archive, and the ecological memory of the Anthropocene
III. Politics of language, symbols of protest, and collective transformation
IV. Cultural scripts, spiritual codes, and visual identity
V. Speculative alphabets, linguistic flux, and future archives

This book aims to both inspire and provide hands-on methods for developing skills in visual storytelling, documentation, and reflection practice that foster authentic, systematic, and distinctive personal outcomes.