Symbols, icons, and indexes take a very important and popular aspect of our hyperdynamic world of quick knowledge. Most of us, especially those who live in Megalopolises prefer to receive the information fast, clear, and without thinking too much. For communication designers, it’s always important to create the understandable and attractive visual representation of the particular message in the visualized form which might be faster to read and easier to understand. All in all, the importance of symbols, icons, and signs is understood for me but until our last class, I wasn’t sure about the difference of those.

     Symbols, icons, and signs have the different meaning and representation even if they might look similar at the first time. For example, I figured out that symbols have no logical meaning between it and the object. Symbols are arbitrary things with no apparent resemblance to the object. For example the symbol of love, we see a red heart and it gives us the sign of love. As everyone knows, the most common symbol for love and certainly the most recognizable is the Heart symbol.  Index signs is a sign where there is a direct connection between the sign and the object and physically is connected to the real world. Like the traffic signs are index signs, because, they give information which relates to a particular location. Icon means a pictorial representation of something and is realistic representations of objects or things. For example, the “No smoking sign”. Basically, all of them helps us visually to communicate and receive the information.

     The example of the movie showed in the class created with icons, symbols and indexed is a good example how those may create a storytelling and visually send the information to the viewer. For instance, I found the story funny at the beginning, as mostly the icons represented the human life and the story was very detailed and realistic to the daily life. The most important is what seemed to be funny at the beginning became very sad at the end. As the story shows not the very meaningful life of the man with his mistakes, realizations and particular action which at the end led to what every one of us will experience at the certain point – death. Watching this short movie I was experiencing different emotions and was understanding the story that was created by icons, symbols, and indexes, which leads to the conclusion that each of those has the same meaning for each of us and most people can understand the meanings of icons symbols and indexes.

     The last part of the class was not less intensive and even more interactive. During our group project discussion, I more deeply understood the functions of art director, production artist, project manager graphic designer and more. For instance, our group decided very quickly and easy the responsibilities of who is who and what each of us should do. As Silvia started to organize the details putting the roles and contact information on paper, in the result by one word we decided that she will be a good project manager and during the week she definitely proved that. I remember Jake’s presentation where he looks very confident in his speech so he agreed to present and to do the research part and Kelsi agreed to join him. Enrique agreed he to be a Production Artist and I will take a role of Art Director who responds to the look and feel of the presentation. All in all, the interactive time was great and we had a chance to get to know better each other as from personal as well as professional perspectives.

 After all, it was an intensive and productive class, with lots of information, and interactivities. Understanding the difference between icons, symbols and indexed helped me better understand each aspect of those. The video that visually interpreted icons, symbols, and indexes to create a story supported the meaning of each of aspects and subscribe the meaning and importance of each. The class interaction helped me to get new better some students from our group and to make some new contacts for the future.