digital electronics Digital electronics is a field of electronics involving the study of digital signals and the engineering of devices that use or produce them. It deals with the relationship between Binary number, binary inputs and outputs by passing electrical s ...

analogue electronics Analogue electronics () are electronic systems with a continuously variable signal, in contrast to digital electronics where signals usually take only two levels. The term ''analogue'' describes the proportional relationship between a signal ...

and

entertainment Entertainment is a form of activity that holds the attention and Interest (emotion), interest of an audience or gives pleasure and delight. It can be an idea or a task, but it is more likely to be one of the activities or events that have deve ...

, the

user interface In the industrial design field of human–computer interaction, a user interface (UI) is the space where interactions between humans and machines occur. The goal of this interaction is to allow effective operation and control of the machine fro ...

may include media controls, transport controls or player controls, to enact and change or adjust the process of

video Video is an Electronics, electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving picture, moving image, visual Media (communication), media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, whi ...

playback,

audio Audio most commonly refers to sound, as it is transmitted in signal form. It may also refer to: Sound *Audio signal, an electrical representation of sound *Audio frequency, a frequency in the audio spectrum *Digital audio, representation of sound ...

playback, and alike. These controls are commonly depicted as widely known symbols found in a multitude of products, exemplifying what is known as dominant design.

Symbols

Media control symbols are commonly found on both software and physical media players,

remote control A remote control, also known colloquially as a remote or clicker, is an consumer electronics, electronic device used to operate another device from a distance, usually wirelessly. In consumer electronics, a remote control can be used to operat ...

s, and multimedia keyboards. Their application is described in ISO/IEC 18035. The main symbols date back to the 1960s, with the Pause symbol having reportedly been invented at

Ampex Ampex Data Systems Corporation is an American electronics company founded in 1944 by Alexander M. Poniatoff as a spin-off of Dalmo-Victor. The name ''AMPEX'' is an acronym, created by its founder, which stands for Alexander M. Poniatoff Excell ...

during that decade for use on

reel-to-reel Reel-to-reel audio tape recording, also called open-reel recording, is magnetic tape audio recording in which the recording tape is spooled between reels. To prepare for use, the ''supply reel'' (or ''feed reel'') containing the tape is plac ...

audio recorder controls, due to the difficulty of translating the word "pause" into some languages used in foreign markets. The Pause symbol was designed as a combination of the existing square Stop symbol and the

caesura 300px, An example of a caesura in modern western music notation A caesura (, . caesuras or caesurae; Latin for "cutting"), also written cæsura and cesura, is a metrical pause or break in a verse where one phrase ends and another phrase beg ...

, and was intended to evoke the concept of an interruption or "stutter stop". The right-pointing triangle was adopted to indicate the direction of tape movement during playback. This design choice was straightforward: the arrow pointed in the direction the tape advanced. Over time, this symbol became standardized across various media devices, from cassette players to CD players, and eventually digital interfaces.

In popular culture

Consumer products

The Play symbol is arguably the most widely used of the media control symbols. In many ways, this symbol has become synonymous with music culture and more broadly the digital download era. As such, there are now a multitude of items such as T-shirts, posters, and tattoos that feature this symbol. Similar cultural references can be observed with the

Power symbol A power symbol is a symbol indicating that a control activates or deactivates a particular device. Such a control may be a rocker switch, a toggle switch, a push-button, a virtual switch on a display screen, or some other user interface. The in ...

which is especially popular among video gamers and technology enthusiasts.

Branding

Media symbols can be found on an array of advertisements: from live music venues to streaming services. In 2012, Google rebranded its digital download store to

Google Play Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store, Play Store, or sometimes the Android Store (and was formerly Android Market), is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certifie ...

, using the Play symbol in its logo. The Play symbol also serves as a logo for

YouTube YouTube is an American social media and online video sharing platform owned by Google. YouTube was founded on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim who were three former employees of PayPal. Headquartered in ...

since 2017.

Television station A television station is a set of equipment managed by a business, organisation or other entity such as an amateur television (ATV) operator, that transmits video content and audio content via radio waves directly from a transmitter on the earth's s ...

owners

Morgan Murphy Media The Evening Telegram Company, d/b/a Morgan Murphy Media, is an American television and radio company based in Madison, Wisconsin. The company is named for publisher Morgan Murphy, who expanded the business after he took over from his grandfather, ...

and

TEGNA Tegna Inc. (stylized in all caps as TEGNA) is an American publicly traded broadcast, digital media and marketing services company headquartered in Tysons, Virginia. It was created on June 29, 2015, when the Gannett Company split into two publi ...

have begun to institute the Play symbol into the logos of their stations to further connect their websites to their over-the-air television presences.

Use on appliances and other mechanical devices

In recent years, there has been a proliferation of electronics that use media control symbols in order to represent the Run, Stop, and Pause functions. Likewise, user interface programing pertaining to these functions has also been influenced by that of media players. For example, some washers and dryers with an illuminated Play/pause button are programmed such that it stays lit when the appliance is running. A line of

Philips Koninklijke Philips N.V. (), simply branded Philips, is a Dutch multinational health technology company that was founded in Eindhoven in 1891. Since 1997, its world headquarters have been situated in Amsterdam, though the Benelux headquarter ...

pasta makers has the Play/pause button for controlling the pasta-making process.

References