Hall, Sean. This Means This, This Means That: A User’s Guide to Semiotics, Laurence King Publishing, 2012. pgs 21-67
Questions
- How has language shaped design historically?
- Can visual design accomplish things that language cannot? Why?
- How are signs, signifiers, and the signified employed in visual communication? Provide examples from contemporary or historical advertising.
- How are non-literal devices used to convey meaning in advertising? Provide examples from contemporary or historical advertising
Language shaped design historically because cave paintings from around 38,000 BCE were the first example of communication thru design. Then the Sumerians invented one of the first written languages. The first written languages were icons that represented entire words. The concept of icons representing entire words and meanings exists in today’s graphic design.
Visual design can accomplish things language cannot because, with visual design, people can use simpler icons instead of words to represent different meanings such as vegetables to signify health and good nutrition. In today’s digital age, language can remain through visual design. The advantages of visual design are that it began civilizations and became the main way of preserving knowledge, experiences, thoughts, and history.
Signs, signifiers, and the signified are employed in visual communication through this anti-smoking advertisement by the organization “tobacco-free futures” because the baby and the clouded black lungs are the signifiers that signify who is being affected by all parents who smoke. The baby and the black lungs are indexical because the state of the baby’s lungs is caused by her parents’ smoking. Second-hand smoke and cancer are the concepts being signified.
https://www.behance.net/gallery/41289655/Second-hand-Smoking
Non-literal devices are used to convey meaning in advertising because they are direct and straight to the point compared to other types of advertisements such as a Tabasco pepper sauce, saying “explode your sense.” The phrase is a metaphor because people can’t literally explode from eating sauce. It is a synecdoche because part of the grenade is actually the sauce while the grenade shape represents how powerful the flavor is.
Annotations:
https://hyp.is/B4L5yhGPEeytP2tQljxBig
I revised the response and added my annotation links