Meaning and Message

Introducing Semiotics

Today's lecture was an introduction to semiotics and how they are used in Graphic Design. We looked at what semiotics actually were:

• Theories that explore how the system of signs work to make a meaning
• They represent ideas and create meanings for things such as words or images
• It is how one thing can be used for something else
• They make sense of the visual world
• They communicate to the viewer visually and verbally

 All good designers are semioticians and understanding semiotics can help up communicate messages effectively. We also explored why we should understand semiotics and how they work:

• How words and images work together
• Shows how visual communication works
• Design choices affect and transform the message
• How text and image can be manipulated to benefit the messages

Semiotics can be seen as signs, which can also be seen as multiple different things:

• Spoken or written language
• Images
• Objects
• Gestures
• Codes
• Symbols
• Sounds
• Pictures

Signs can also have an emotional impact on the viewer, they can mean different things to different people dependant on their cultural experience, their differences and expectations. With different types of semiotics such as signs there are semiotics for colour which is a way in which colour is expressed and with certain information that make the viewer understand the message or feel a certain emotion - this is also culturally conditioned for each individual. Commercial world takes advantage of our ability to associate colours with meaning e.g. Red can connote passion, love and lust.

'Languages differ by differentiating differently - John Passmore

Charles Sanders Peirce says that there are three categories of signs:

• Symbol - No logical connection between the symbol and the thing it is symbolising
• Icon - Resembles the sign, there is a likeness
• Index - A direct link between the sign and the thing it is representing, there is a factual connection

There are also such things as creative semiotics meaning that to understand the semiotic means you can play with how the words and images communicate with the viewer, they enable us to explain why and how clever use of text and image 'work' together e.g. Anthony Burrill 'Oil & Water Don't Mix'

Anchorage and Relay (Roland Barthes)
Text which anchors or constrains how the image is read. The reader is directed by 'how the signifier or image is read'it  clarifies or 'anchors' the meanings through visual clues. Where the image is complex, it helps to underline a relationship between the text and image e.g. advert, map, narrated documentary. The words and images tell a story equally - they stand in a relationship.