Free Transcript of Episode 1.10 Illustrating In 10 mins - The Power of Semiotic Sign-action
Semiosis 101 Season 1 Video 10 Transcript
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the video published on Semiosis 101 on 12 Oct 2022, we will focus on exploring the application of how to represent a concept by crafting the Iconic, Indexical and Symbolic levels of representation in an illustration.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…
…and here is the video’s transcript.
NOTE: As with any video transcript the tone used is conversational. The following transcript text features ad libs, and therefore should be read in the spirit of any semi-scripted video.
Let us get to the 10th episode on general Peircean semiotic theory for illustrators and designers. Today in around 10-minutes, we will focus on exploring the application of how to represent a “Concept” by crafting the Iconic, Indexical, and Symbolic levels of representation.
A few weeks ago on this channel, I added a bonus content video of an academic paper I wrote in 2018 on applying Peirce’s Semiosis in visual communication.
This paper was presented at the CONFIA 2018 illustration conference in Portugal, and was called Illustrating Semiosis: A Pragmatic Turn to Peircean Semiotic Theory for Illustrators. This week's video revisits that visual example from that conference video. I will use my own Airmail illustration for the late 1990s to illustrate how Peirce’s Semiosis is applied into effective visual communication. As usual it will be a theory-packed 10 minutes of Semiosis, and as usual in designer-centric terms.
If you enjoyed this video on how you can apply Semiosis to your creative work to improve your visual communication skills, then let me know in the comments below. I would really like to hear your thoughts.
So here is today's video. Let us go crafting sign-action.
Okay. Welcome to this week's talk.
We are going to be focusing on explaining some of the fundamental starting points of Semiosis. Of the sign-action of how to represent the “Concept” semiotically. By exploring the three subclasses on how …in Semiosis… we can represent the “Concept.”
From the lowest building block - which is Iconic - up to the middle ground - which is Indexical - and then finally to the highest level - which is Symbolic. These terms are particular to Peirce's Semiosis, but of course the word “iconic” and “symbolic” has other connotations in a wider sphere of things.
So, just bear with me on this.
When I talk about “iconic” and “symbolic” it is within the realms of Peircean semiotic theory that I am using the specific meanings of these words. I am using these adjectives rather than Peirce's words which are Icon, Index and Symbol.
I am using Iconic and Indexical and Symbolic representation of the “Concept.” The “Concept” is the word we use, as visual communication designers and illustrators, for what Pierce uses the term of… OBJECT.
Where Peirce uses the term OBJECT, we are using the more design-centric term “Concept.” But we are using Peirce's terms Icon, Index, and Symbol as Iconic, Indexical, and Symbolic. but within a really quite tight meaning of these words.
Those meanings will be brand new to a lot of people watching this video. Just keep that in mind. Bracket out all that as a way of understanding the next 10 to 15 minutes in this talk, and let us go.
Okay?
What we are going to do, is focus in on illustrating Semiosis by using a example, from sketch to finished concept, that builds upon the three levels of representation.
This is a more detailed focus on a talk… a 10 minute talk… I gave at an illustration conference. The video of that conference is also available on this YouTube channel.
So, watch the full video… that gives you a complete overview of the Peircean semiotic theory in context of how it is applicable into illustration. But… we are just focusing here on the three levels of representation… the Iconic, Indexical, and Symbolic representation …using this Airmail illustration that I did in the late 90s for Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council …MBC.
Okay?
We see here a sketch of a carrier pigeon. We are going to be focusing on Iconic representation.
What is Iconic representation within Peircean semiotic theory? Well, it is when we have elements that are a resemblance to something we already know. That have shared qualities, that by association, we have a perception that when we see these things, we have got an idea that we know what these things mean.
But in the new context of where we are seeing them, then it hints at there is something else happening here. That hinting is essentially the starting point of Semiosis. The start point of the sign-action. The sign-action in action of semiotics working with our target audience.
So, here we see our illustration of a carrier pigeon and that carrier pigeon is essentially made up of lots of little Iconic sketched elements that give a different flavour to a representation of a carrier pigeon… that only certain audiences will pick up on. Now obviously, it is aimed at a predominantly English-speaking local area, just the other side of the water of Liverpool, on The Wirral - the Wirral Peninsula.
So, [the illustration] features a lot of elements that that target audience would pick up on as references. Those picking up of these little elements, within this illustration, are key Iconic representation elements.
So, let us forward this bit further.
Okay.
So the first thing we are going to look at here is the choice of the pigeon wearing a flying helmet. We see here the little lines and shapes that are put together, in such a way to hint at this is a flying helmet - if you know what a flying helmet is - and a pair of goggles. On a pigeon?
Well, let us worry about that later. Right now we get a sense of flight being represented here. So, by the resemblance of a flying helmet, in goggles, on a flying bird, we are getting a sense of "pilot" rather than a bird. Iconically, it is resembling elements that we associate with a "pilot" and so we have this here.
Moving forward… that the actual flight of the Airmail carrier pigeon [is] frozen in mid-flutter of its wings… suggests the "wings" of a "plane.” But reinforcing here… with other elements of "Iconicness" …the colour is more akin with leather… the brown is more akin with leather… rather than an airline skin on the wing.
The fluffy bit… the lighter colour is representational - on an Iconic level - of "fur" around the flying jacket… and the little roundel… if you know your World War II history of the RAF (Royal Air Force), then you make the connection… …flying jacket …roundel …RAF Pilots. It gives you that little bit of a sense of "Oh, okay. This is a bit tongue-in-cheek."
Let us move her along there.
The little Iconic feathers sticking out… almost like fingers… are obviously representational of either fingers… or feathers… off the wing. You can read it in both ways. But it is just Iconic level of building blocks of shapes that are sort of feathers… and sort of fingers… at the same time. You can interpret them either way you want.
Then we got like the bag itself. So, it is not just any old bird. It is a bird carrying mail. The mail is Iconically represented as these little sheets of solid parchment colour, with a little square of red on it to Iconically represent stamps.
Well, it is just a shape, on a shape, with colour, reinforcing the aspect that this is not just a shape, this is a representation of something that resembles the qualities of mail that we are familiar with. Having that, in what looks like a bag… that looks like it could be made out of leather… all of these are being communicated at an Iconic level.
Putting them all together you are shaping the focus on what this could be. And just to give a sense that this bird is in the sky, rather than just on a flat plane of whiteness, then the the clouds themselves are represented in a sort of cartoony way, of an Iconic representation of what a cloud, if drawn in this way could represent a cloud. We have got an idea the clouds are fluffy and so this is an Iconic representation of the fluffiness of clouds. But ultimately, it is just a white shape with a stroke of light blue around it, against a gradient of blue on the background in the final illustration.
So let us look at the final illustration from the sketch.
We can see all these elements come together… that is essentially reinforcing the idea of the carrier pigeon almost like an RAF pilot from World War II, with his flying goggles …very tongue-in-cheek… the fact that we got the little cartoony shapes, which are again Iconic that it is representing the actual sense of flight… and this is a carrier pigeon, on a mission to deliver particular mail… particular communication.
Let us move this up to one level. So, we have talked about this as Iconic. Now let us move this up to Indexical.
That if… from all what I have just said there… which is essentially a lot of Iconic elements all placed together, in such a way, that we get this sense of interpretation …now just gone through… then you get a rise, at the point of, "Ah! Okay, this is a carrier pigeon."
So, we could say that from an Indexical point of view that… Indexically… when it starts to work Indexically within Semiosis… sign-action… the Indexical…
<ASIDE> think about your index finger pointing at things <ASIDE>
…when the visuals point at a particular thing that we go… "Okay, that is SOMETHING that exists, that is SOMETHING we know, that is an existing thing!" …that we know.
We may never have seen [the SOMETHING] in the flesh, but we know that is SOMETHING that exists. So, in this case… Indexical representation… like your index finger… points at existent things.
Now, when I say about "things existing" they do not have to be real things…they could be things from literature, from any other source, that within our culture exists. In this case… this cartoony pigeon carrier pigeon… exists as a concept that we know. That carrier pigeons existed and they were used in the war, to ferry communications from one location to another. So, it is reinforcing all these ideas Indexically.
From this illustration… if you got the idea of a carrier pigeon… that is the image and all the Iconic elements working together to Indexically point to a carrier pigeon. BUT if you also got from that the sense of a pilot, a World War II flying Ace-type pilot in his leather flying jacket, and his the flying helmet and goggles, then also Indexically it is pointing you to that. It is the same image, but it is starting to [semiotically] work
All those Iconic levels are starting to work, and point you to these two indexical elements… that is representing a carrier pigeon…it is also representing a pilot… a particular type of military pilot… RAF military pilot.
But if any of you, of a certain generation, also remember the Hannah Barbera cartoon of Catch the Pigeon I think it was called? Then you will get the other connections to this, is the fact that Dick Dastardly and Muttley [are] …always trying to catch the carrier pigeon with all their flying machines… it is a lean towards that, as popular culture.
So, as I said it was aimed at the target audience of the community within the Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council catchment area, of people who the council wanted… to help the local people… improve their communication with the council. So, this is one illustration that just reinforces, in a document, that [the council] put through the door to their people who live within the council metropolitan area. It is just reinforcing this idea of communication between two entities… themselves (the council) and the Metropolitan Borough.
So that takes us up to the next level really, which is Symbolic.
If this illustration is referring to communication…an aspect of communication… then… as I said… it was aimed at how to contact the Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council.
It was in a brochure comprising of lots of different illustrations all reinforcing the idea of different modes of communication of how to contact the council. That is essentially when you see the illustrations and you get the idea that when you see this, in the context of the Wirral documentation, this image… this illustration… is pointing the target audience at contacting the Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council, to actually help with the bins or whatever [the residents need].
So, at this level, it is gone beyond the fact that it is a carrier pigeon. It is gone beyond the fact that it could be a pilot, and references to Dick Dastardly and Muttley, trying to capture the carrier pigeon… into… "this is reinforcing a form of communication to The Wirral" which is the big Concept that this is about.
So, then, it becomes a convention or a rule that is agreed between the target audience, that when they see this illustration, and these illustrations that were in the brochure… all of this reinforces the idea that it is all about communication.
So, there we have it.
We have Indexical… Sorry… we have Iconic… which, if interpreted in such a way by the target audience… that they make the connections… it could become Indexical representation.
And once all of that is taken on board by the target audience… they then, generally agree, that when we see all of these illustrations that illustration - the carrier pigeon - and all these other illustrations showing different forms of communication… then this means about contacting Wirral Metropolitan Borough Council, on the Wirral, opposite Liverpool.
Okay.
So, that is today's lecture on Semiosis in this case illustrating Semiosis - the sign-action in action.
Come back next week. We will focus [on] again the same things about Iconic, Indexical, and Symbolic, but we will focus it through the medium of graphic design and branding, just to reinforce the idea.
So come back again next week and catch that one, which just reinforces what we said today about using illustration as the mode.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…