Abstract
Graphic symbols are very important in visual communication. But lots of symbols are similar to others with their shapes, or their meanings in different fields. That makes users confused to recognize them, and always make false recognition. To resolve this problem, this report aimed to discuss the relations between the meanings and the shapes of the graphic symbols, and to find the appropriate shapes to express the meanings of the graphic symbols. 656 graphic symbols were selected from 18 different fields and were analyzed with their meanings and shapes by cross table. As the result, we find some pairs of meanings and pairs of shapes are always used to express the graphic symbols, and some of the specific meanings were always expressed by some of the specific shapes.
