Semiotics and the making of meanings - Lecture notes
Why do we need to know about semiotics?
- They provide Tools, vocabulary, confidence in your ideas
Professional designers need to be able to explain to a client how the choices they make effect and transform the message they are crafting for the intended audience.
They give the ability to explain how a lot of visual communication works, how that can
be manipulated to the benefit of the message, and how a
professional adds a lot of value to a product – a key area that separates the
professional from the amateur.
- not about having the knowledge to make
design that looks good; you need to be able to analyse and explain
why your ideas work.
All good designers are semioticians
Semiotics – the theory(ies) which explore how systems of signs work to make meaning.
Signs - spoken,written language, codes, symbols, sounds, non-linguistic.
Signs can mean different things to different people.
Creators and consumers of visual art and design- as participants in a
culture which functions on the basis of shared meanings and common
understandings
We decode meaning from signs and symbols easily.
We are sophisticated readers of signs and do this subconsciously.
Good idea along with a brilliant aesthetic
-may fall down in the absence of proper effective communication of the idea through the aesthetic. where semiotics comes in Understanding semiotics can help us to ensure we're
communicating messages
Paul Rand IBM logo—“Ideas do not need to be esoteric to be original or
exciting” (Paul Rand)
Pauls popular Eye-Bee-M poster
Semiotics – The Basics
Understanding how words and images,together with
ideas and interpretations, are used to make sense of the
world. How words and images communicate meaning.
To understand how design works, we need first to
understand how language-visual and verbal-works.
Colour semiotics- Colours as ‘coded’ - how do colours act as vehicles for communicating a specific message or evoking a certain emotion?
Culturally conditioned-
Arbitrariness
Linguistic categories are not simply a consequence of some predefined structure in the world. There are no natural concepts or categories which are simply reflected in language. Language plays a crucial role in constructing reality.’ (Daniel Chandler, Semiotics)
Saussure noted that linguistic signs are inherently arbitrary. The fact that a meanings are expressed
using different words across different languages demonstrates that neither the sound nor their
written form bears any resemblance to the object/meaning to which it refers. In this sense,
meaning is purely subjective.
Nothing about the 'c', 'a' or 't', or about the full word 'cat' have any inherent 'cat-ness' about them.
Associating this word with the mental image of a cat is learned behaviour.
Peirce’s three categories of signs
Symbol – no logical connection to referent, arbitrary, relies on habit or rule. E.g.
words, flags, alphabet,
Icon – resembles the sign, likeness. Representation question – will always entail a
degree of convention/agreement about modes of representation. E.g. photograph,
onomatopoeic word.
Index – direct link between sign and object, factual relationship – causal/physical.
E.g smoke is an index of fire.
Creative semiotics
Understanding semiotics means you can play with how words and
images communicate, subvert conventions and question how it all
works. 'Where there is choice there is meaning' (David Crow)
Anthony Burrill Oil And Water Do Not Mix
In advertising
Because semiotics relies on common understandings and culturally shared conventions, even where the signified is absent the sign can still be meaningful in certain contexts.
Heinz ‘invisible bottle’ advert- shows that heinz ketchup is so recognisable it can be identified as it is so iconic!
Semiotics and humour
Most of all jokes are rooted in an understanding of semiotics, and an ability to subvert the ways in which meaning is made and communicated
Semiotics and fashion
What assumptions do we make from a semiotic 'reading' of clothing?’
Roland Barthes (literary theorist, philosopher, linguist) is widely regarded as one of the most subtle and perceptive critics of the 2oth century. He was particularly fascinated with language and fashion, and the history of clothes.
'Clothing concerns all of the human person, all of the body all the relationships of man to body as well as the relationships of body to society' - Roland Barthes.
Anchorage and relay (Barthes)
Anchorage – text which anchors or ‘pins down' how the image is read. The reader is directed through a ‘floating chain of signifiers’. The text clarifies or ‘anchors’ the meaning, hinted at through visual clues. Where the image is complex, it helps to underline a relationship between text and image. E.g. adverts, maps, narrated documentaries on TV.
Relay – the words and images tell a story more ‘equally’ and stand in a complementary relationship. Important in film and comic strips, the text advances the reading of the images and supplies meanings not found in the images alone. Both the words and images are fragments which together create the unity of the message – which is ultimately realised on a higher level.
Martha Rosler The Semiotics of the Kitchen (1975)
Semiotics of the Kitchen is a feminist parody video and performance piece released in 1975 by Martha Rosler. The video is considered a critique of the commodified versions of traditional women's roles in modern society. Featuring Rosler as a generic cooking show host, the camera observes as she presents an array of kitchen hand utensils, many of them out-dated or strange, and, after identifying them, plays out unproductive, sometimes, violent, uses for each. It uses a largely static camera and a plain set, allowing the viewer to focus more on Rosler's performance and adding a primitive quality. Letter by letter, Rosler navigates a culinary lexicon, using a different kitchen implement for each step along the way. She begins with an apron, which she ties around her waist, and, with deadpan humour, journeys through the alphabet. The focus on linguistics and words is important, since Rosler intended the video to challenge 'the familiar system of everyday kitchen meanings - the securely understood signs of domestic industry and food production.
