New Maya Language – Redesigning an Ancient Script
The Maya was a civilisation of indigenous natives that populated
Central America from around 1500 BC who invented the concept of
number zero and whose calendar measurements are the most
accurate in the history of the civilised world. They created and
used one of the most beautiful and intelligent logographic languages,
still quite unknown to western hemispheres. The Maya scribes had
a very privileged position in the socio-political system and were
multi-talented – they were artists, sculptors, and calligraphers, and
were also believed to be astronomers, mathematicians, historians
and royal book keepers.

Original Maya hieroglyphs were both ideographic and syllabographic.
The pictograms' series is a unique interpretation of the original Maya
hieroglyphs with the aim of applying them to contemporary visual
communications by designing emblems and pictograms. The New Maya Language is a redesign of certain ideographs that communicate 
concepts and even sentences. My work parallels the principle of 
the Chinese-concept script where primary root or Lego-like pictograms 
can be combined to generate compound or more complex ideas. 
For example, ‘Stone’ + ‘Fire’ combined equal the ‘Lavastone’ 
New Maya Language ideogram.

The project started by developing narrative pictograms for ‘Joya de
Cerén’, an UNESCO World Heritage Archaeological Site in El Salvador
in Central America as my Central Saint Martins College of Art &
Design, University of the Arts London master’s thesis case study in
2004 and is still evolving to date. The archaeological site was apt
because it was about common citizen’s way of living, about their
eating habits, social relations, architecture and agriculture —
very unlike the majestic religious temples usually found in the
Mesoamerican region. The Maya written language was not really
accessible to the non-elite population, a problem that still persists
in our modern times. It is really a dead language only readable by
a few in the academic world. The system is a universal visual
language, which can also help surpass literacy disadvantages –
specially in the developing world – while at the same time enhance
users experience and learning in public locations or through a toy,
or simply be appreciated as an art form.

The idea is being applied to different areas of design, such as
branding, information, fashion and product design. The 100-page
hand-bound book, translated in four languages: English, Spanish,
Maya, and visually, compiles and decodes the project.

The work is an attempt to bring value to the Maya cultural identity
and a celebration of Mesoamerica’s indigenous roots. A revival of
the Maya language becomes a viable path for developing cultural
symbols that inspire future generations and bring new life to the
sacred stones.