Mindgard Sign Studies 01
MG-SS-01 · Sign studies 01 · FinalFinal × Mindgard · 23 Oct 2026 · Exploration, nothing final

Same codes, more voices.

Both directions are still in play, the composite finding sign and the icon set it's built from. This sheet pushes them toward more expressive and varied graphics while keeping the code underneath intact. Every specimen is generated from the same finding codes, so you can trace any variant back to the finding it encodes.

Study 1 · Dialects

One icon set, six ways of drawing it

A dialect changes how a mark is drawn but never what it means. The bitmap and dot-matrix rows aren't drawn by hand. We rasterize the monoline vectors at 12 × 12 and redraw them as vector cells, so each icon still holds up at very low resolution. Orange-red stays reserved for the attack.

Resolution ladder ·

The same icon drawn at 5 to 24 cells. At low resolution it reads as texture and at high resolution it becomes legible, which is how the Glyph Cipher decode could work for icons as well as letters.

Study 2 · Pixel pictograms

A wittier second voice, drawn by hand on a 12 × 12 grid

The OP-1 draws its punch effect as a boxer, and Isotype draws a quantity as a row of little people. This set works in the same spirit. It's literal and a bit funny but still systematic, since every icon sits on the same 12-cell grid with no anti-aliasing. Each one is shown in square pixels and as a dot-matrix. They could sit beside the abstract set (in product empty states, on swag or at the booth) or replace it.

Study 3 · The finding sign, five ways

The same finding, composed five ways

Each composite arranges the same icons by a different rule, so the vocabulary stays fixed while the grammar changes. Concentric nests the slots around the target. Matrix gives each slot a fixed cell, like a tiny Bertin table. Orbital hangs the slots on a ring. Barcode encodes them as bands you can decode, with the reading printed underneath. Burst uses eight rays for the eight attack families, so one sign shows what was found and what wasn't. Each row is a seeded finding, and all of them are illustrative.

ConcentricThe original. It's compact, but the slots compete for space.
MatrixThe easiest to learn. A slot always sits in the same cell, so a page of these lines up like a table.
OrbitalThe most expressive. Empty slots still show as dots on the ring, so you can see what's missing.
BarcodeThe most literal. It can be decoded, and the reading is printed beneath it.
BurstShows coverage. The seven families that weren't found still appear as short rays.