未開のことばAR app for iPhone and iPad

This app was developed to provide augmented reality (AR) functionality to TAKEO DESK DIARY 2022, entitled Uncharted Language.

TAKEO DESK DIARY 2022

TAKEO DESK DIARY has been produced by TAKEO Co., Ltd. for over sixty years, beginning with the first diary in 1959. The diaries are not for sale, and are not available to the general public. The theme of the 2021 diary was Earth Chronicle, which emerged from the concept of taking each day of the year as if it were an individual frame in a visual depiction of the evolution of our Earth. In the diary, each month’s calendar constituted a description of part of the Earth’s history, progressing as much as hundreds of millions of years at a time on a multidimensional chronological scale. The 2022 diary is the second iteration in this series. This time, it points the spotlight at human language, and invites you to participate in a journey that tracks human language and writing systems from the past into the future.

Content and system

The pages of the diary include twelve two-page spreads, one for each month from January to December. As with the previous year, the diary follows a path of development—the development of human words and writing systems through history. On each of the double pages, AR is used to present an augmented page (text space).
For example, one page is inspired by the fact that the name of the Quran, the central religious text of Islam, includes the meaning of a text to be read aloud. Pointing a smartphone camera at the page with this app running brings up the sound of recitation, and the color of the text begins to change. Another example is a page where AR shows the evolution of alphabetic letters around the Eurasian continent.
Japanese text space design has the special characteristic of mixing characters and language into visual screens or pages, as seen in manga and similar media. This characteristic is expressed by overlapping contemporary Vocaloid images with the artistic works of Hon’ami Kōetsu from 400 years ago. And video content expressing the future visual language potential of Chinese characters—the only extant ideographic writing system—is visually overlapped with oracle bone script, known to have been produced over 3,000 years ago.

Aim and significance of the AR functionality

To current generations living at a critical juncture in the progression of printed culture and electronic media, the question of how to integrate or bridge the gap between paper booklets (analog media) and digital information systems is an unavoidable challenge for our civilization. AR and MR (mixed reality) seem to have a role to play in solving this challenge, but we are still at the stage of early experimentation, largely in the areas of entertainment and advertising. Applications of AR techniques to literally augment and upgrade the massive intellectual heritage that humans have accumulated in text spaces such as books and printed matter have yet to be pioneered. TAKEO DESK DIARY 2022 and its associated AR functionality represent one of the experiments attempting to address this seminal issue of our present age.