Free Transcript of Episode 1.11 This Changed My Designing… Semiosis: Semiotic Sign-action In Action
Semiosis 101 Season 1 Video 11 Transcript
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the video published on Semiosis 101 on 19 Oct 2022, we will focus on how in Semiosis, the Representation of the Concept semiotically can work when designing (especially within designs of brands).
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 11th episode on general Peircean semiotic theory for illustrators and designers.
Today in around 10-minutes, we will focus on how in Semiosis the Representation of the “Concept" effectively works when designing. Last week, we examined using illustration as an example of how during our ideation phases Iconic, Indexical, and Symbolic representation of the "Concept" or "Concept"s can be connotatively constructed.
Next week we will look at Iconic representation in more detail, but this week we will deconstruct a piece of familiar design to read it from a Peircean Semiosis perspective.
I will begin the semiotic deconstruction at the Iconic level of Representation. Then reconstruct the familiar design, moving from Iconic to Indexical, and then from Indexical to Symbolic. It will be a theory packed 10 minutes of Semiosis, but in designer-centric terms.
The next 10 minutes will be an olympian task of semiotic deconstruction and reconstruction. So we better get started… Subscribe. Hit the bell. On your marks… let us go.
Welcome to this week's talk. We are going to be focusing this week on designing Semiosis, which follows on from last week's talk - which was illustrating Semiosis.
Last week we used an illustration example to explore Iconic, Indexical and Symbolic representation - semiotic Representation of a "Concept." But, this week, we are going to focus more on graphic design.
Okay?
So… two aspects of Visual Communication Design we have got to focus on. We are going to be exploring sign-action …in action. Now of course sign-action from Peirce's point of view as the the theorist behind the semiotic theory the word Semiosis is actually his word for sign-action - the action of the semiotic sign. That is what we are going to focus in on just the very first one which is "Concept."
We are going to focus in on explaining Iconic, Indexical and Symbolic using a piece of graphic design as a way of explaining the theory, and how the theory can enhance visual communication.
To do that we are going to be using a piece of graphic design, a piece of branding done by the Jack Renwick Studio.
Thanks Jack for giving me permission to use this example.
It is from 2016, their branding of Carpenter's Wharf, a housing development on Fish Island, in Hackney Wick, in London. Carpenter's Wharf was basically redeveloping Fish Island and setting up thirty-five canal-side one, two, and three bed apartments. But rooting those apartments… the branding of it was rooted in the culture of the island… which was basically woodworking and that type of activity on the island. Just to give a sort of context for this continuation of the island itself, on the Thames.
So, we are looking at continuity here of activity, but obviously moving from actual woodworking and industrial, into residential. That was the big "Concept" behind Carpenter's Wharf as a development, and that is what this branding focuses in on. We are going to explore that through applying Semiosis to this 2016 campaign.
Okay, so…
Iconic representation is the entry… starting point… of how semiotics works from a Peircean point of view. What Iconic representation does… it Represents the "Concept" by providing visual clues - and we are talking visually here - visual clues of what we want our target audience to take from it… to interpret from what we provide them with for them to make connections to the BIG "Concept."
So, what we have here, is the fact that Iconic representation picks out the "Concept" by RESEMBLING that "Concept.” That Iconic representation can only refer to the "Concept" by its perceived resemblance through an association of shared qualities that the target audience are already familiar with. That is what we are going to explore further, as we go through here.
Let us just start the exploration now of Iconic representation. Well… straight away… what we just saw there on the screen… if you got the word "tools" in your head then Iconically you are already beginning to interpret the semiotics underpinning the design. You do not have to know what type of "tool" these things are… it is just the fact that the shape of the things you recognise as "tools."
So, here we are. We have a "tool"…another "tool"… another "tool"… and another "tool." It is the the shapes of those "tools"… it is the shapes themselves that gives us the sense of what we are looking at is a "tool." An OBJECT that is a "tool." But, that is not just all we are looking at here.
We also have the fact that the left-hand part of the branding we have the shape of a house. Now, fundamentally as children… when we are told at school draw a house… draw your house… we come down to this Iconic level of what is fundamentally a "house" shape. But we might have lived in flats… we might lived in big country houses… we might lived in a two-up or two-down terraced houses… our actual physical house had no connection to the shape that we drew except that when we are told to draw a "house" we know it has got a roof… walls… and a floor… and that is what we draw.
We draw something that resembles a "Concept" of what we think a "house" is.
That stays with us all through life.
So, a very fundamental starting point of "Iconicness" begins as a child. It begins with us being human. But, all of these things …I have drawn shapes here to focus on the shapes… but also… we have the wood print, of the wood grain. And, if you look at the imagery again… you see that the shapes themselves are built up of sections of printed wood.
So this is wood that has been (as in print-making) rolled with ink and then paper pressed over the top of it, to capture the wood grain, and then that has been used to create the imagery that you see. So, this itself is also Iconic because it is "Iconic" of the wood grain… it resembles the wood grain… it is come from the wood grain, but it resembles "wood grain"… and wood resembles natural materials… so Iconically, there is a lot going on in this imagery that is Iconic in nature. that starts off our wonder and discovery of "What does all this mean?"
What does this mean?
Well, let us move up one level. If you got as far as "tools" then Iconically these shapes made out of blocks of printed wood - wood grain - gets you to this point. That if you know, from the left to the right, that the first object is a wood plane… the second object is a wrench…third object is a wood saw… and the fourth object is a hammer… if you got to this point of being able to name them already [this] imagery is moving up the levels of semiotic communication into what we call - Indexical.
Think about your index finger… it points to specific existing things… a wood plane… a wrench… a wood saw…a hammer… because it picks out the "Concept" by means of pointing to an existent thing. So as designers, if we craft our Iconic representation in such a way, then some people… some of our target audiences will make the connection… the Interpretation we want them to. To say "Ah, that is this!" - pointing at it - that is a wood plane… that is a wrench… that is a wood saw… that is a hammer… all of these things are Indexical representation.
It is still the same image, but once you start making the Interpretation at a higher semiotical level of this is an actual existent thing… and when I say "existent" I am not talking about it has to be a real thing - it could be an idea. "Trolls" do not exist but it may be Representational of a troll.
Okay?
[A troll] is an existing thing in popular culture and in folklore, but [a troll] does not "exist." BUT it still could be referenced Indexically through visual means. That we see the shape of the elements - which is the "Iconicness" - to then go… "Ah, all those shapes put together - that means a "troll!" But in this case, it is not a troll - it is a hammer.
Let us move up to the next level which is the top level of semiotic communication which is Symbolic.
Symbolic representation picks out the "Concept" we want to communicate via a convention or a rule. What do we mean by that? Well, we are talking about this piece of graphic design as a piece of branding.
It is branding Carpenter's Wharf, on Fish Island, in Hackney Wick, in London. It actually points on us to, to not just an existent thing - Carpenter's Wharf - but when we see the branding and all the elements of the branding, all the tools, all the wood grain …like house shapes… and all the other elements that are part of the branding campaign; it all points to this physical location, which is thirty-five canal-side, one, two, and three bed apartments on the canal; which is called Carpenter's Wharf.
So, as soon as we start seeing all these images in a particular way that we know the meaning of it is actually, "Ah that is like [>misnaming error<] Carpenter's Wharf development area," where the houses are, where you have got one, two, or three bed apartments, all of these things means THIS PLACE.
That is the CONVENTION or the RULE that we - as the target audience - learn.
Let us just go back a few steps…
What we have is our ICONIC level…the RESEMBLANCES to some things that we already KNOW. Once we get the connection of "Ah, that is this!" then we are starting to move up to INDEXICALLY… to the final stage where it all works together semiotically, to actually, once we know what the real "Concept" is - in this case it is Carpenter's Wharf, a housing development.
Then that is where the same piece of design works at the higher level. So the same piece of the design can work at Iconic level. If the audience interprets a lot more from it…you can start working at the INDEXICAL level, and then if the target audience gets the full "concept," then it works at the Symbolic level of Representation.
So hopefully that gives you an insight on how Semiosis works, through the Representation of the "Concept" we want to communicate through Iconic, Indexical, and Symbolic. We will be coming back to those terms in more depth over the coming weeks, in future videos, but for now that is the end of today's video.
Come back again next week, and that is it for now.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…