Free Transcript of Episode 2.5 Forget What You Think You Know, To Semiotically Improve How You Visually Communicate
Semiosis 101 Season 2, Video 5 Transcript
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the video published on Semiosis 101 on 10 May 2023, we see there is no shortcut to understanding Peirce’s sign-action. But Semiosis 101 knows an easier route through Semiosis (built on my trial and errors in Designerland so far!)
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.
Dr André De Tienne, a philosophy academic and editor of the Peirce Edition Project, reminded an online forum on Peirce that “there is no shortcut” to understanding him.“One has to capture the evolving continuum of [Peirce’s] thinking, without reducing his thoughts to scattered or detached points.”
In my Semiotic Rosetta Stone design research I am seeking a suitable meta-language as an interface between Peirce and visual communication creatives, that transmits the essence of Peirce’s thinking into a creative application. There is no way that creative practitioners have the time to wrestle directly with Peirce, to then apply the theory.
Trust me, it took until my PhD to get the headspace to begin this.
So, that is where Semiosis 101 comes in to translate Peirce into designer-centric language. I do agree with Dr De Tienne that there is no “short cut.”
In a vox pop at the 2022 @Semiofest, the Mexican semiotics professor Roman Esqueda related an interesting anecdote about a semiotics congress with ten semioticians to design students. One design student asked them all, “Why, if you are experts on semiotics, no-one understands what you are saying?” That was when Esqueda realised semioticians needed to do something different.
In a strange parallel, in 2013 I attempted to communicate Peirce’s semiotic theory for the first time. This was at a talk to design teams at the User Experience Professionals Association Scotland. In my anxiety at only beginning to understand Peircean semiotic theory, I made an embarrassing error in front of these design professionals. I assumed that I was the “dumbo” in the room, about to talk to an informed audience on a well understood topic.
You are probably already ahead of me on how this panned out, yes?
Yes, you are.
Feeling that in my forties I was the ignorant one in the room, having only just got his head around semiotics, I launched into my research presentation with fake confidence. I was throwing out Peircean terms, left, right and centre.
A Representamen here.
An Interpretant there.
A Dynamic Object to the back of the audience, and a Sinsign to the front row.
What I received in return where blank faces, yawns, polite embarrassed smiles, apathy and a look of thinly-disguised horror on the event host’s face, sitting in my eye-line, at the back of the audience. Very quickly I realised that I was not the late one to the Peircean semiotic design party. I was the only party-goer.
This lost audience of designers taught me an immediate lesson. Yes, the designers had an awareness of semiotics, but no knowledge of Peirce. After the talk I shared a lift down with one of my research participants, who I had featured in my presentation. I asked her what she had thought. She was not a designer and was just a research participant, so the design-specific elements I had presented were of interest to her. But all the semiotic theory went “over her head.” Unfortunately, this theory also went over the heads of the assembled audience of design professionals too.
I may well have just spoken in ancient Egyptian, and had my slides typeset with hieroglyphics. Peirce was in an alien language.
As last week’s book review episode outlined, there are books for the perplexed on the market, and Tony Jappy’s book was my main ally in 2014/15 in translating Peirce. But even with his accessible reader on Peirce’s semiotics, the dissonance between Peirce’s language and the language of designers was too great.
This opened up a whole fresh area of research in my PhD, which would not be resolved directly in my thesis, but addressed within several appendices. It was these appendices after gaining my doctorate that have since spun into these Semiosis 101 videos. After all, if a) I had to work hard at Peirce at doctoral level, and b) my viva examiners were also ignorant of Peirce, then c) there WAS a need for a designer-centric version of Peirce’s theory of Semiosis.
In these Semiosis 101 videos, with twenty videos per season (I am currently planning season 4 for 2024), I unpack Peirce in 10 minute bite-sized chunks. With each video I am slowly evolving the designer-centric terminology as a meta-language, trying to walk the tightrope between avoiding dumbing down or mis-communicating Peirce, and finding the best terminology that equates to designer’s practice.
This is precarious, but like any tightrope walker I do have a safety net if I slip.
These videos are a conversational tool, rather than being set in stone.
I utilise the historic Rosetta Stone (which as a stele is literally carved in stone) as the metaphor. My focus is on the middle band of the carved stone texts, a Demotic language that translators used to finally unlock the mysterious hieroglyphics. My Semiotic Rosetta Stone is an ongoing process rather than a thing “fixed” in time. The original French translators’ task began from the known to the unknown, just like modern creatives.
By approaching Peirce in this way, acknowledging that there are unknown riches to be unlocked, a designer-centric approach from the language of application into the language of theory, accepts the reality of this process has to be creative-led.
As the anecdotal evidence from Mexico and my own Edinburgh talk demonstrates, the theory-down to practice approach is flawed. It has to be from the known to the unknown to have a chance of being meaningful to the very people (you!) who will benefit from a clearer understanding of Peirce. It is not enough to hope Peirce’s terms will resonate with practitioners if frequently repeated.
There is an important factor in the ambition of Semiosis 101 to bear in mind with a Semiotic Rosetta Stone. There is not one single designer-centric lexicon to use. The design process is qualitative and expressive. Design is influenced by a range of theoretical and practical influences, and the language that a designer or illustrator inherits depends upon their design school teaching, and the language their mentors have used.
An example of this multi-facetted lexicon problem can be illustrated with the different ways designers and illustrators refer to the sketching of a concept to demonstrate their intent to a client. To name a few alternatives, we could refer to this as a ‘rough,’ a ‘scamp,’ a ‘sketch’ or a ‘visual.’ They are all a moment of visual communication. In a Peircean way, they are a moment of Iconic encoding.
What do I now mean by using a term such as “Iconic encoding?” After all, that term is neither truly Peircean nor purely designerly! This is an example of a meta-language interfacing between the two. Building upon the practical act of attempting to ‘rough out’ an initial concept to show a client, the creative will through marks, lines, shapes, colours, etc. attempt to visualise in sketch form, a visual to dynamically communicate their suggested idea for a solution to the client’s brief.
This ‘sketch’ will attempt to suggest (encode) using ‘sketched’ elements that possibly resembles/shares qualities with/is familiar to things within the experience of the intended audience - the client. These elements are rudimentary forms of representation (Iconic), that visually communicates something of the intended message. In this example, creatives will understand where the part of their design process and Peirce coincides.
To end this fifth season two video, we can conclude that to understand Peirce in Visual Communication Design terms, interfacing needs to come from the design process upwards. To be truly designer-centric, this obviously has to be from the known (design practice) to the unknown (theory). The success of this interfacing, through a Semiotic Rosetta Stone meta-language, needs sustained dialogue between creatives and semioticians to shape that meta-language.
Semiosis 101 is starting that dialogue off, and Semiosis 101 is open-source. Just like the original French translators of the unknown hieroglyphics, Semiosis 101 will be a collaborative effort.
Come back next week for the next Semiosis 101 episode, where we will begin to answer the question “What can semiotics do for me?” and we will begin this with another helpful book review.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…