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The Olympics were held in Tokyo in 1964. A few years ago before the Olympics,
Japan had a big problem. It was a problem of communication. Many foreign people
didn't visit Japan, and we had only, Japanese signs. For example, words like "i"
or "" were on toilet doors. These signs were not understood by many foreign
people. Japanese people at that time needed to make signs in many different
languages for foreign people. But when they put many words on one sign, the "letters
became too small. They could not easily read the sign. They had to think of
) signs for foreign people. Mr. Masaru Katsumi, a leader of a design team for the
Olympics, had a great idea. everyone /to/ was easy / thought / understand he
forit pictures. He wanted to make picture signs. These signs are called
*pictograms and are used in many places now.
Picture 1
Picture 2
Picture 3
Look at these pictures. Picture 1 shows a
shower. Picture 2, shows a toilet. Picture 3
shows a restaurant. Foreign people can easily
understand what each picture shows. They had
to make pictograms which everyone could understand without any trouble. When they
started to make them, one of the
pictograms was a shower. Many
Japanese people didn't know about showers at that time and didn't have one at home.
One of the designers didn't even know the word "shower." One officer had to
explain how to use it with a photo of a shower. The designer made the pictograms
through the officer's words.
With a lot of trouble and hard work, twelve designers needed three months and
made pictograms for the Olympics. When the last pictogram was finished, Mr.
Katsumi said to all the designers, "You did a great job, but this work is not for us. We
did it for all Japanese people. Please write your names on this paper." The paper
said that they'd like to give up the *copyright to the pictograms. They wrote their
names on the paper. They gave up the copyright. One of the designers said, "Mr.
Katsumi hopes that many people in many places will use the pictograms in the future.
Money from the copyright is not important to Mr. Katsumi. He is proud that he is one
of the members who worked for the Tokyo Olympics."
In 2020, we are going to have the Olympics in Tokyo. Our life will change a lot.
What kinds of new signs or pictograms will we see around us?
(E) letter
pictogram
ピクトグラム(絵文字)
designer
www.
デザイナー officer
役人
copyright
著作権
