Standards: A Visual Directory
Hao Zheng
Standards is a visual directory that examines how classification systems shape perception, value, and knowledge across everyday life. From blood types and coffee roast levels to diamond grading and dog breeds, the project collects and reinterprets familiar standards that are widely recognized yet rarely questioned.
Each entry focuses on a specific system, breaking it down into its visual structure, method of measurement, and cultural implications. By placing unrelated systems side by side, the book highlights unexpected similarities and tensions, revealing how different domains rely on comparable strategies to organize variation into categories. Rather than presenting standards as neutral or purely functional, the project frames them as constructed visual languages that influence how we interpret bodies, objects, and information. Charts, diagrams, and classification tables are treated not only as tools, but as forms that carry authority and shape understanding.
Through an encyclopedic, alphabetically structured format, Standards transforms familiar systems into a cohesive visual narrative. It invites viewers to reconsider how classification operates across disciplines, and how seemingly objective frameworks participate in defining norms, differences, and hierarchies in contemporary life.