Language is literally just how we communicate to each other, verbally or otherwise. That’s literally it. You can use body language, verbal language, the fucking langauge Tolkien made up for Lord of the Rings- it is simply just a way to express an idea in some way or form. Now that might not be the LITERAL definition but who cares? It gets the point across. “The linguistic sign unites, not a thing and a name, but a concept and a sound image” says Wade Baskin, and yeah he’s right it’s not fucking rocket science (at least, for me, looking at this from an artistic perspective). It’s putting images there and associating them with words/ideas/people/whatever. Some examples include hieroglyphs from ancient Egypt and emojis from today’s world.

We HAVE to, however, also recognize that different symbols mean different things for different people, and that over time, different symbols have evolved their meanings. A great example of this is the Swastika- in Buddhism it represents well being, but Hitler made it a hate symbol back in The Holocaust, so now it’s probably not a good idea to wear one, even if you mean well.

The three essays expand on the idea of words representing images, as well as taking us back to sesame street in the first page and teaching us that numbers can be spelled with letters as well (holy fuck bert and ernie forgot to teach me that). I read the essays but honestly I don’t remember a DAMN thing other than it was backing up the idea of images and words. The essay layout looked like a damn child scribbled all over it and that was too distracting for me. But I don’t feel like I’m missing much out of those essays anyway.

At the end of it, These readings had a lot more to say about how images and words can match up, but I didn’t get much out of it because I was already aware of that and I’m a slut for logos so!!!


DISCLAIMER: I have literally said this multiple times but I DON’T CARE ABOUT COMMUNICATION DESIGN OK I’m more of a fine arts person so please spare me I’m trying my best.