Reading Response 2
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 that use simile, metaphor, metonym, synecdoche, irony, lies, impossibility, depiction, or representation.
- NOTE: Please use historical or contemporary examples, not just those from the readings.
After reading the works by Sean Hall, there are numerous interpretations on understanding the way that design has been shaped by elements such as language and its complexity in power. There are so many instances in which language is conveyed in design, such as from before the industrial revolution, in a time where most worn clothing and household goods were hand-made. There was an importance in what things were worn and used in a household due to global communications, and other aspects such as class, gestures and beliefs led to specific designs. Sean Hall brings about the idea in which conventions of language that are considered natural are the ideas and products of cultural prejudices and historical events. This can connect to designs such as clothing due to the fact in which judgements against women have led them to wear bras and other clothing to “cover up”. In terms of language, communications are considerably much more harsh in the modern day due to the ease of communicating across countries from singular devices and anonymity. Platforms such as Instagram, Facebook, and even TikTok use algorithms to connect groups of people that can share specific interpretations of language with each other, be it negative or positive. On “News-Oriented” accounts that I follow, I often find comment sections immersed in political differences from people not only from New York State, but users from outer states in the US, and even other countries that may not share our same political spectrums.
Language and communication are something that humans have developed from their origins to every current passing day, resulting in the modern technological and scientific feats we have today. According to Hall, language serves as a way of mediation or somewhat of a passageway for us as people to see the world as it is. When it comes to visual design, visual elements are a much more direct form of communication as it is direct and representative of themselves, rather than having to describe an image in its detail.
In the example of the painting of Adam and Eve, the signifier is an apple that is actually meant to communicate the signified ideas of temptation, healthy, and fruit. The use of signs, signifiers, and the signified are often employed in visual communication through the way in which they have technically always been used, but with adaptations to the everchanging society, we are engulfed in. With contemporary advertisements such as websites and online resources depicted on visual advertisements, small features such as a white arrow tip indicate that there is something to “click” on, be it a link, or an encouragement of opening up a computer to have the same arrow appear. Additionally, there are further connections between contexts because of human lifestyles; the way we cook our food, the way we dress, the way we find entertainment, and more. All of these have shifted in variety so greatly every decade, and these qualities 100 years ago are much different than today.
Nonliteral devices are definitely used to convey meaning in advertising, and one that I can think of is the 1984 Apple Commercial. Rows of emotionless, robotic people are shown information listening to a leader speak on an extremely large screen, in a very “1984 by George Orwell” style. For a second, we’d forget that this is an Apple commercial because of course Apple does not want us to live in this cruel style, but rather so the opposite, which is why Apple is intended to break free of the normalized ideology. Through the use of such devices, Apple seems to have reached and impacted their intended audience not only at the time of their advertisement’s release but for the years that have followed it.
References:
Hypothesis Annotations:
1: Explanation
2: Definition
3: Examples
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