This printing set has turned individual symbols from the phaistos Disc into stamps, so that participants can create their own visual narrative by stamping and adding drawing in any way they like. Many of the symbols from the disc have a surprisingly modern feel to it and the main objective of this game is allow the players to conceptually play with the symbols on paper. This will encourage them to cognitively contextualise and make meaning with the symbols in relation to their own lives and will build their visual recognition and material knowledge of the script, from which further knowledge seeking can spring.

‘Interpretation involves intellectual confrontation with language and other cultural products. In the spirit of interpretation, meaning is not an innate quality of forms or an automatic reaction of the brain; it is discovered by relating signs to one’s own personal and cultural experience, and to other signs. Images take meaning from stylistic and iconic conventions, from other images, and form words, as well as from natural objects. To interpret is to recognize that signs are not an absolute, neutral, and fixed, but are, rather, in historical flux.‘ (Lupton:1986)

Ash Oldham
Educational Print Designer