Free Transcript of Episode 2.0 The Semiotic Rosetta Stone of Design and Illustration?
Semiosis 101 Season 2, Preview Video Transcript
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the video published on Semiosis 101 on 1 Mar 2023, we preview Semiosis 101 season 2’s theme of a Semiotic Rosetta Stone and how the application of Semiosis enhances visual communication to our audiences.
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.
Welcome to Season 2 of Semiosis 101.
This week we have a preview video of the theme for the next 20 videos.
A new season and a new theme to explain Peircean semiotic theory of Semiosis - sign-action – in designer-centric terms. Season 2’s theme is the Semiotic Rosetta Stone. So let me put this into context.
The original Rosetta Stone was a discovery of a carved stone that finally broke the mystery of ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. This was achieved because this stone plaque contained the same text in 3 languages.
Hieroglyphics - which was untranslatable.
Ancient Greek - which was known.
And a third language – which was demotic.
Demotic was a meta-language which could be used to mediate an unlocking of the unknown from the known. Semiosis 101 is here to do just that for Peirce’s theory. The Semiotic Rosetta Stone is an umbrella term I use to describe the need for a designer-centric explanation of Peirce’s semiotic theory of Semiosis.
The Semiotic Rosetta Stone is also the term that frames my academic research, under which I have ran workshops and academically been published. In season 2 this will be the broad focus of how the next 20 videos will help you to apply Semiosis into your own design or illustration work.
To begin this, the first 5 videos will be your Semiosis 101 …101… …to and semiotic theory. We will begin at the beginning by dispelling 5 things that semiotics gets confused with. It is always good to go back to basics, in order to rebuild your visual communication practice from a stronger foundation, by helping you make more successful connections with your target AUDIENCE.
How do visual communicators improve their effectiveness to positively convey the intended connotative messages encoded in their work?
With many years experience of teaching of design and illustration to university students, I have observed 5 common problems they have with embedding semiotic theory:
Students hear semiotic signs and think… signage. They think it is the design of signage.
They hear semiotic signs and think… a method to understand what has already been created.
Students misconstrue semiotics as a fixed thing instead of an open-ended process.
They believe semiotics to be an abstract “thought exercise,“ in books that are not relevant to their visual communication work.
Finally, students are frightened to begin to understand semiotics because it is not written in their language.
Semiosis 101’s first 5 videos of season 2 will address these problems. In Semiosis 101 I have spent season 1 outlining Peirce’s main semiotic theory into designer-centric language. In doing so, Semiosis 101 has begun to create a lexicon of designer-centric terms (like the demotic meta-language between Ancient Greek and hieroglyphics) to decipher Peirce’s theory, for those of you out there who cannot make head nor tail of his obtuse language.
But so far, that designer-centric lexicon remains a short list of terms, using a lot of creative industry contexts to explain the theory. In order to explain Peirce’s meaning, we do first have to explore the design contexts in which it can be applied to enhance our visual communication ability. In season 1 we have explored these contexts using professionally-produced illustration and design sketches and outcomes, to understand how Semiosis - sign-action – works, to HOOK the target AUDIENCE.
In season 2 we will go deeper in expanding a designer-centric lexicon of terms for visual communicators, in the creative industries, to apply Semiosis into their work. To do this we will build upon the results from Semiotic Probes that I have used with design professionals. These Semiotic Probes were used in research projects with two collaborators… Professor Paul Cobley – a semiotician at Middlesex University and Dr Shaleph O’Neill at University of Dundee.
These semiotic elements framed by design and illustration professionals in their own terms, offer Semiosis 101 with clues of how the Semiotic Rosetta Stone’s meta-language can help the application of Semiosis into visual communication practice. These clues will be shown how they connect with the need of every visual communicator …to successfully convey the intended encoded messages to the intended target AUDIENCE.
In season 1, we have already seen how Semiosis’ triadic determination flow goes beyond the mere signifier/signified. We have seen Semiosis’ powerful sign-action involves our intended target AUDIENCE. That AUDIENCE involvement is key to why Semiosis is important to understand by non-theoreticians …by visual communicators who create the illustrations and design outcomes the public encounters every day.
Semiosis relies on a cycle of three stages:
a Concept,
its Representation
which leads to an Interpretation.
If successfully facilitated through sign-action then the Concept reveals its message and meaning. Concept/Representation/Interpretation are from our designer-centric lexicon. Peirce’s terms are more obtuse… Object/Representamen/Interpretant. I did warn you about Peirce. In our metaphor of a Semiotic Rosetta Stone, Peirce’s language terms are as impenetrable to visual communicators as hieroglyphics.
Semiosis 101 will translate Peirce.
So, whether you are a visual communicator - a designer …an illustrator - or just an interested party in understanding semiotics (and how it can be applied), Semiosis 101 season 2 will be your guide. Now that season 1 can be referred to for more detail, season 2 will focus on this channel’s viewers as beginners.
In the next 20 Semiosis 101 videos, we will begin each episode with a basic question. Each question will focus on a simple question a beginner desires to ask. In the spirit of the theme, the Semiosis 101 video will answer it in the most direct, creative-friendly way. In doing so, we will grow a designer-centric lexicon phrase-by-phrase.
So, do not be shy.
Remember there are no stupid questions. Ask YOUR semiotic question in the comments. By adding your questions in the comments below we will engage in a conversation that will grow our designer-centric meta-language to explain Semiosis together. The designer-centric terms that season 2 will develop, will come from using examples drawn from many visual communicator’s creative outcomes. What the Semiotic Rosetta Stone can mean to you is a way to visualise how Peirce’s Semiosis theory connects with our target AUDIENCE, by how we visually communicate.
In our visual communication work, we produce various outcomes using appropriate visual language. It is in how this visual language …the aesthetic choices we make… HOOKS the attention of our target Audience, that can be enhanced with an application of Semiosis. To enhance our visual communication’s effectiveness, Semiosis helps us to tailor our visual language to communicate at a deeper level with our AUDIENCE.
By shaping a designer-centric meta-language through these videos, our visual communication effectiveness will grow. Season 1 of Semiosis 101 has already made some semiotic impact around the world. Since launching in 2022, I have been contacted by design lecturers as far afield as China, who have used Semiosis 101 videos as a resource to teach semiotic theory to new generations of designers and illustrators.
To facilitate more of these direct impacts, I have placed semiotic resources on a Semiosis 101 Substack. Some of these resources are free, and some are by paid subscription. This Substack resource will be added to over the coming months. The free resources will be in the form of video transcripts, while for paid subscribers (apart from the cool Semiosis 101 exclusive subscriber gifts) you will get access to extra semiotic content, writings and comprehensive annotated Semiosis reading lists.
The Substack link is in the description below and from the Scouse-Scot website too. <you’re already here>
So that is our Semiosis 101 season 2 preview. Through the metaphor of the Semiotic Rosetta Stone I invite you, my viewers, to join the semiotic conversation. In fact, I send an open invitation to you to get featured in a future video in one way or another. It might be a featured question here, or even a guest appearance in a video there.
Who knows?
It all depends on what level of involvement you fancy. You do not even have to be a designer or an illustrator. The historic Rosetta Stone took over twenty years to translate ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and unlock hidden treasures. Semiosis 101 aims to not take as long as THAT! But like its historic namesake, the Semiotic Rosetta Stone will also take more than one person to crack it.
Want to help?
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…