Modern Symbols
95 symbols to explore
Meaning & historical contextBrowse modern symbols
95 symbols.
About modern symbols
Modern symbols and their researched historical, cultural, and practical relationships.
Sanctum Hex Journal
Read beyond the catalogue.
Editorial research connected to modern and its historical settings.
Nautical & Maritime Symbols: Meanings, Origins, and Visual Language
Nautical & Maritime Symbols explores the history, meanings, and visual logic behind a tightly curated set of enduring seafaring motifs.
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Traditional Nautical Tattoo: Meanings, Origins, and Visual Language
Traditional Nautical Tattoo looks at how classic flash symbols turned loyalty, danger, romance, and grit into instantly readable images.
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Curated sets
Collections with related symbols.
Collection overlap is shown against the symbols on this meaning page.
25 matching symbols
Emblems and Symbols of Secret Societies and Initiatory Orders
A diverse selection of historically documented emblems and insignia used by secret societies, initiatory orders, and fraternal organisations worldwide.
25 matching symbols
Traditional Nautical Tattoo Collection
Traditional Nautical Tattoo gathers 25 symbols shaped around traditional flash language, protection motifs, bold line symbolism, and heirloom Americana composition, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.
15 matching symbols
Nautical & Maritime Symbols Collection
Nautical & Maritime Symbols gathers 25 symbols shaped around ropework, anchors, beacons, ships, swallows, hearts, stars, and the symbolic shorthand of maritime life, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.
8 matching symbols
Memento Mori Mortality Symbols Collection
Memento Mori Mortality Symbols gathers 25 symbols shaped around hourglasses, candles, skull-adjacent marks, decay and renewal motifs, time symbols, and mortality emblems, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.
8 matching symbols
Slavic Protective, Household, and Folk Motifs
A curated selection of historically documented Slavic archaeological and folk motifs emphasizing protective sigils, household symbols, and traditional decorative devices from Eastern and Central Europe.
3 matching symbols
Historically Documented Military Symbols and Insignia (c. 1700–1918)
A curated collection of diverse military rank, branch, and unit insignia reflecting authentic forms used worldwide across the 18th to early 20th centuries.
3 matching symbols
Symbolic Forms Mythological Creature Collection
Symbolic Forms Mythological Creature gathers 25 symbols shaped around mythic beasts and legendary creature symbols shaped as compact, cut-safe emblem forms, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.
3 matching symbols
Witchcraft Collection
Witchcraft gathers 25 symbols shaped around folk magic, lunar ritual, protective signwork, and the symbolic language of domestic and ceremonial witchcraft, with each mark chosen for clarity, historical resonance, and a strong editorial silhouette.
2 matching symbols
Botanical Silhouettes — Flowers, Leaves & Plants in Simplified Nineteenth-Century Style
Botanical Silhouettes brings together 25 flowers, leaves and plants rendered as bold, simplified botanical emblems. Inspired by nineteenth-century botanical illustration and decorative arts, the collection focuses on recognisable plant forms translated into clean silhouettes suitable for engraving, cutting and print. Many of these plants also appear in historical traditions of botanical symbolism. Where a historical symbolic association is documented, individual entries should distinguish period evidence from later or modern interpretations.