The Social in the Visual

Otto Neurath’s dream was that his ISOTYPES might be understood by all peoples. Some information design might border on being universal. Taps (or faucets if you’re in the U.S) derive their colour information from nature: red from fire for ‘hot’, blue from water for ‘cold’. Easy. But what about traffic lights? Maybe the red comes from nature: red stands out in a mostly blueish/greenish landscape and we can associate red with some dangerous creatures or the appearance of blood. But whence the green? Don’t taps’ colours establish that blue is the conceptual opposite of red? Perhaps green is used for go because it is the ‘afterimage’ of red: the visual opposite? But then, what about the colour information contained in the software application, Word? Red denotes a spelling error, i.e ‘stop, and correct this’. But does green mean OK to proceed? Of course not. In Word green denotes poor grammar. Is this poor information design? Or does it merely show that we do need to learn to ‘read’ information design as Ellen Lupton or Tomas Maldonado would tell us? Certainly it would limit graphic communication if red only ever meant danger or stop. What are your thoughts?