The A-Z of Visual Ideas

I

Icons

The word icon was first used to describe a holy picture worshipped by believers. It has now come to mean someone or something that is universally and uncritically admired with an equivalent level of adoration.

Iconic adsIn the 1999 ads (opposite far left) Apple computers use the iconic status of Picasso and the Dalai Lama to send the message that they too are visionary thinkers. Louis Armstrong, the personification of creative joy, features in the 1958 ad for Polaroid cameras (opposite right).

Human icons

Iconic status has been achieved only by an exclusive few individuals. While the fame of the vast majority of those known as celebrities ...