Hall, Sean. This Means This, This Means That : A User’s Guide to Semiotics, Laurence King Publishing, 2012 (Chapters 1 & 2) pgs 21-67.

After reading the article, the definition of  Saussure’s terms sign, signifier, and signified in my own words. The sign means using a symbol, an icon, or a concrete thing that the author or people give a significant meaning or symbolizes something without using words to explain. A sign is formed by two elements: signifier and signified. Signifier means that symbol or mark with a specific meaning. When people see this symbol, they can automatically recognize the information in their minds. Signified means the meaning, the explanation, or a concept that gives to the symbol or visible things.  Most of the time a signifier can have various different signifieds, and the same as a signified can have various different signifiers. In the real life, sign is very common. For example, a rose can represent love, beauty, or danger (especially a rose with thorns). About love, we can use heart-shaped symbols, roses or peach blossoms, or cupids to represent it. These are all inherent impressions formed through long-term accumulation.

Most people know this apple that was bitten represents the logo of the apple company, an electronic product. In the vision of the advertisement, people can recognize that half of the apple is bitten, which is about Apple products. We can easily associate apple company with this symbol through long-term accumulation and continuous deepening of people’s understanding of it. When it reaches the extreme, an apple that has been bitten is placed next to an electronic product that does not display a logo, or a pear that has been bitten is the logo of a laptop. People can quickly associate it with Apple’s product and know that it is a meme or reference to Apple’s logo.

Those all are icons, but why isn’t symbol? The reason is very simple, an icon only represents what it looks like and doesn’t have any other or specific meaning. It is more like common sense. Just like when we were kids, we learned or recognize things from pictures. In the simplest sense, the apple icon just represents fruit apples, and the cat icon only represents an animal called a cat.

The index is imagery or an association base on your knowledge and observation. Also can understand it as a sign that implies some object or event. For example, in this picture, we can see a pair of footprints on the beach. And our brain would start to associate or analyze the information given by the footprints, a person walking on the beach without wearing shoes.

So these are advertising posters of Heinz ketchup. In these adverting posters, they are using simile or metonym types of non-literal devices. We can observe from the poster; In the first poster, tomato slices of different sizes are assembled into a bottle and affixed with Heinz’s logo; In the second poster, a tomato stalk is placed at the bottom of a bottle containing ketchup. We can easily get the message they want to convey, that is, their ketchup is made of fresh tomatoes, and it also expresses that their brand ketchup is a healthy and quality guaranteed product. Let their customers believe more in brand products.