noun: cryptology
- the study of codes, or the art of writing and solving them.
As an advocate for STE(A)M, I want to connect cryptology to the arts. It may seem an unlikely connection, but there are many examples of hidden messages in literature, music, and visual art. I give examples below and include an art activity and a link to an article that gives examples of contemporary hidden messages.
Literature
For older readers, there is the classic THE DAVINCI CODE by Dan Brown. Many of you may have wondered (I sure did) how much was real and how much made up. But this post isn’t about the novel but using it as an example of code in literature. Middle grade writers like Blue Balliett and Ellen Raskin incorporate puzzles to solve and provide clues for an alert reader. I enjoy stories about secret messages and clues and it adds another level of mental activity to the reading.
Music
Music has provided opportunities as well for secret meanings. I’ve included classical examples here. And one of my favorite musical examples is in the Alfred Hitchcock film “The Lady Vanishes.” Miss Froy disappears but not before she entrusts Iris and Gilbert with a musical phrase that passes a secret message to the Foreign Office.
From the online article Musical Cryptography: Hiding Messages in the Music! (link below) from PuzzleNation Blog.
This sort of musical wordplay appears in compositions by Ravel, Debussy, and Shostakovich among others. Johann Sebastian Bach did this often enough that the succession of notes B-A-C-H is now called a Bach motif.
The composer Dmitri Shostakovich lived under a very repressive regime in Russia. He included passages in his compositions that “critiqued” the government. However the members of the government didn’t know enough about music to see that. This was dangerous because penalties for speaking against the government were severe.
Visual art/graphic design
For an activity this month, I am looking at Secret Messages in a way we see every day. The opportunities to be a spy are few these days, but knowing how to spot messages coming to you is a good skill. According to John Hopkins Center for Talented Youth, Cryptology is the study of the codes and ciphers used to create secret writing. We usually think of spies and stories, but there is “secret writing” all over.
For instance, in the article 36 Hidden Messages in Company Logos You See All the Time, by Kelly Kuehn (link below) you can see how people are influenced without even realizing they are being influenced. Check out the article for other examples.
You may have thought the dot over the “i” was used to give the logo a pop of color, but it’s actually part of a hidden—and creative—message. The red dot is actually a bowl of salsa. The two T’s are people, and the yellow triangle in between them is a chip. It’s supposed to represent people coming together to share a tasty snack of chips and salsa.
Once you know that this is common, you can find examples of hidden messages all over.
When I was teaching graphic design in at university, I had the students make 50 (yes, 50) small logo sketches, known as thumbnails, with their initials. We used tracing paper and pencil and it was about ideas, not perfection. Then we could discuss the merits of some of the individual ideas and use them to move on to a more polished design. You can, of course, make fewer sketches – how many you need to get the idea you like.
There are two aspects to consider. One is the visual part. Is it attractive? Colorful? Compact? Attention getting?
The second aspect is the underlying meaning. Does it respond to the personality of the designer? And – does it say more than an initial quick glance would reveal? Here is where the hidden meaning comes in. This requires higher level thinking to manipulate the space to include a secret message.
It helps to have a plan.
- What is the overall spirit of the logo? Some possible answers are serious, playful, sporty, mysterious. Write it down to remind yourself.
- What is the secret message? Your answer to #1 might be sporty so somewhere there could be the shape of say, a soccer ball or a running shoe. Can you incorporate it into the design so that it isn’t immediately apparent, but is easily recognizable? There are many books on logo design, both how-to and the best-of.
- Try to make the final drawing clean and in black and white.
Yes, a challenge. Sometimes it helps to work with a partner or a team, the way a professional design studio would work.
After settling on an idea, then make a Very Clean drawing. The drawings can be scanned (at 300dpi) as jpgs or pngs, for use on such documents as school assignments. For younger grades, a rubber stamp or stickers are fun for embellishments.
Have fun with your secret message logo!
Margo Lemieux is professor emerita at Lasell University and spent time in October doing plein air painting in cranberry bogs.
Hiding Messages in Music
More musical messages
https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/musical-cryptography-codes?mc_cid=82ccbfcf25&mc_eid=d3196740af
Cryptology definition
https://cty.jhu.edu/programs/on-campus/courses/cryptology-code
Company Logos You See All the Time, by Kelly Kuehn
https://www.rd.com/list/secret-messages-company-logos/
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