Symbols are a non-verbal means of displaying information. We might think of them today as being reduced in human life to existing on product labels in business, but there’s a whole lot more to it than that.
     

    To begin with, consider these three representations above of the symbol that heads this website. When an image of this kind is put into place, regardless of whether it's presented in a plain printed, or three-dimensional, or coloured or even hand-drawn form, it carries exactly the same message to the unconscious. A lot of time and effort is wasted on excessive refinement of design in symbols.

    Any symbol that's been around for a long time has a big impact on us through the old mind. We're used to being able to describe our reactions through our conscious mind, and in general we go to our explicit memory to order and make sense of our daily experience. Symbols, though, don’t engage the brain’s speech centre. They bypass it. They summarize and compress a lot of core information from age-old human experience, and just a visual flash of them can act as what’s known as a trigger, engaging brain processes automatically.

    The correct response to a symbol as far as the brain is concerned is to look at it and then as a result of its message, get its owner headed in the right direction, whatever that may be, rapidly, and without reference to the conscious mind. Very often that direction will involve being taken out of danger, in accordance with the impulse to self-preservation.

    So, for a comparison: if we want a definition of the chemical composition of candle-wax, we look to a chemistry textbook or an encyclopaedia and process it through the conscious mind. When we've done that, we can speak about it. But if we want to stop traffic in an emergency, we don't mount an argument in an urgent conversational voice. We hold up an arm with a palm flattened towards the incoming cars. Drivers brake on presentation of that symbol, and they'll get around to asking why they’ve done it later on. Symbols, in other words, convey information but they don’t offer detail. Very often they resolve into two camps, positive and negative. The brain regards the negative as threatening, without further ado. This is very important for websites.

    Just about any symbol I make up to put here might be one that’s in use by a corporation somewhere, so some aspects of this discussion can be hard to illustrate from real life without offending somebody. Which said, there are some terrible mistakes being made by companies putting up symbols that come out of the minds of graphic artists or executive directors on the basis that they seem to look good. These decisions are made in the conscious mind. Considering how much graphic cleverness is available these days, the layout can be someone’s brainchild, sporting all the best of the available options, in all sorts of colours. Yet, at the same time, the symbol itself can be quite toxic, conveying a very different message than the intended one directly into the unconscious mind.
                  

    Above there are four images. Two of them are highly positive, and two are highly negative. Some of the most expensive websites in the business carry symbols based on negative forms rather than positive. Many people looking at these symbols as they're presented here will get an uneasy feeling from the negative ones, especially now that the invitation has been issued to look at them carefully. These old forms above have been stripped to their basic lines, unlike the often dressed-up forms that turn up on businesses. That fact can make the identification process easier. Offering complex forms in multiple colours may disguise the symbol a little, but only to the conscious mind. The unconscious takes it in all the same.

    Age-old signs carry associations, sometimes extremely strong ones, and usually several at a time. These are not able to be interpreted in a line-by-line fashion. They come in and hit the unconscious mind rapidly. Under certain circumstances, especially when they're accurately placed, viewers will not even be conscious of seeing them and so will almost never remark on them.

    A negative symbol placed in a position of spatial power is therefore a strong deterrent to a website visitor. There's a complicating factor here, as well. The symbol itself can be theoretically isolated for this discussion, but in practice there are often lines and other directional elements added to a website by means of the graphics. These in effect can become part of the symbol itself.

    A symbol punches above its weight. The longer it’s been around, the bigger the hole it can burn in the psyche. For all the good work that might go into design of a logo, putting up a negative symbol can blow business effectiveness right out of the water. There’s no supernatural reason for this. When a business is headed by a noxious symbol, it doesn’t put a supernatural hex on it to the third generation – it’s just that when people look at it, an instant and negative old-mind response takes place. This can prevent them from getting to know many possible good things that operate deeper inside that business, including good service and nice people, simply because they never get that far. The unconscious suspicion roused by the old mind has already done its work.

    As for the four symbols above, they carry associations of idealism, dishonesty, support and misery. But, hey, not necessarily in that order.