The heart has many meanings. According to the ancient Greek philosophers, it was linked to our most powerful emotions. Venus set hearts ablaze with the arrows fired by her son, Cupid. The earliest appearance of a heart shape was found on a coin in the ancient Roman town of Cyrene. It had nothing to do with a human heart, by the way: it was based on a plant, the silphium.
Sweetheart
Courtly love in 12th and 13th-century Europe lent a new meaning to the heart as a literary symbol of love. It required troubadours, noblemen and knights to pledge their hearts to an unattainable, married woman. Courtly love placed these women on a pedestal: it was then up to the man to amuse his lady with singing, poetry, quests and chivalric tournaments.
My heart in your hands
The heart symbol we know today with its two lobes and point first appeared in the Roman d’Alexandre (1344), a prose romance by Lambert le Tort and Alexandre de Bernay. An illustration by Jehan de Grise shows a woman accepting a man’s heart as a gift. The symbol then spread all over Europe, appearing in manuscripts and coats of arms and on jewellery, playing cards and tombstones.
I ❤ NY
In 1977, the heart symbol became a verb. That was the year the American graphic designer Milton Glaser came up with the I ❤ NY logo to promote a new identity for New York State. It proved hugely successful: demand for T-shirts, caps and bags decorated with the logo exploded. Glazier’s design meant that the ❤ symbol could be used in multiple ways to show your affinity with a person, place or thing.
Love is… an emoji
The Japanese telecom provider NTT DoCoMo took all this to a new level in 1999 when it launched the very first emojis. Nowadays there at least 30 of them incorporating a heart symbol. That’s handy, because love can sometimes be hard to define. Which is why we add a ❤ to our e-mails and messages. Why we send Valentine cards with a ❤ and give gifts with a ❤. The enduring popularity of the ❤ symbol offers hope and recalls the timeless idea that love can save us.
More
Passion – Love play
The appearance of sex toys tells us a lot about how people felt about lust and gratification at a particular time. About the taboos that might still attach to them. And about the future of sex and the ideals of designers.
Passion – The kiss
Your first kiss. You never forget it. No matter how sweet, sloppy or bad it was. After that, there’s no stopping you: on average you’ll spend 20,000 minutes of your life kissing.
Passion – Perfectible body
Not happy with your body? Then do something about it. That seems to be the credo of our age, with its obsession with perfect bodies. But is the body really so perfectible?
Passion – The body
The contents of Bouquet romantic novels might still leave something to the imagination, but not so their covers: this is the image of the ‘ideal man’. What does it say about our perceptions?
Passion – Romantic fiction
Seven Nights with the Sheikh, A Kiss in the Moonlight, An Heir for the King: the titles of romantic fiction in the world-famous Bouquet series have always appealed to the imagination. Guilty pleasures full of desire, temptation and happy endings are still extremely popular.
Falling in Love – Making it happen
Butterflies in your stomach, unable to eat a thing, constantly daydreaming and checking your phone every five minutes to see if you’ve received a new message: falling in love is magical.
Bonding – Parenthood
For centuries being a mum or dad was not a choice at all, simply how things were ‘supposed to be’. The way parenthood itself is viewed has also changed over the years.
Bonding – Marriage
Only three things are truly important in a marriage: you, your beloved and your love for each other. All the same, there are a lot more factors at play in the background.
Bonding – Family of choice
In addition to their biological family, many people have one they’ve chosen for themselves: people you’re not related to, people who understand, help and love you.
Bonding – The Couple Look
See them whizzing across the city on their fast bikes: his a men’s model, hers a woman’s. Both wrapped in a puffer jacket and with matching trainers. The dreary ‘ANWB couple’ in trendy jackets.
Love, designed
We’ve all grown up with stories and clichés that have unconsciously influenced our image of love. Love, designed explores these stereotypes and shows how design guides the way we both seek and ‘consume’ love.
