Free Transcript of Episode 2.8 How Lifeworlds Help Creativity: Semiotic tips and hacks to improve audience success!
Semiosis 101 Season 2, Video 8 Transcript
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the video published on Semiosis 101 on 7 Jun 2023, we focus on the communicational relationship space between client, creative and audience, to apply the three levels of representational semiotic sign-action and begin to trigger perceptions in the target audience.
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.
I realise I may be asking many Semiosis 101 viewers to rethink their dualist notion, that as designers or illustrators, their relationship is only directly with their client. What I am arguing in these videos is that the relationship is more open-ended as it involves the target audience proactively. This argument I make is firmly within the very three-way, open-ended, sign-action of Peirce’s Semiosis.
I am, like Thomas Wendt (author of Design for Dasein which I will be reviewing in a future video), arguing for a phenomenological design process to aid creatives in the effectiveness of their visual communication practice.Peirce’s Semiosis is formed from his own phenomenological philosophy (see season 1 episodes 1.15-1.18).
We saw that phenomenology manifest itself last week within the three representational levels of the Iconic, Indexical and Symbolic. This week we have reframed the ‘do for me’ question into a question about ‘hooking’ and ‘maintaining attention’ in the target audience from the creative’s aesthetic. I will later in season 2 be reviewing another useful book on Pragmatic Aesthetics by Richard Shusterman. But within Peirce’s phenomenology, is its philosophical Pragmatic heart.
With Pragmatism it is how the application works. Within Visual Communication Design, the ideation phase is where the most suitable sign-action to facilitate effective interpretation is explored. By involving the audience, even at this stage abstractly, in the ideation helps the creative to find a visual language that will be appropriate to the Representation of the Concept, and facilitate its intended Interpretation.
A dualist model of a client: creative relationship will not help either the creative nor client. The creative’s aesthetic is not the end of visual communication, it is only the device to hook and then retain attention. For the aesthetic to work harder beyond a subjective surface level of decoration, Semiosis, if mindfully applied, will aid the creative to maximise its potential in the eyes of the audience.
Klaus Krippendorff, in his book The Semantic Turn, argues for the movement of design thinking to extend beyond the creative, through what they design/illustrate, to create a sense of meaning beyond its parts. This framing of the design process takes into account that design thinking deals with people and their experiences. A phenomenological framework provides the creative with the philosophical space in which to explore the lifeworlds of their target audience. Phenomenology provides creatives with a basis to make and visually test experiential claims.
Wendt states that “Design is the process of enacting the human experience through [what is designed].” A lifeworld is a phenomenological term that encapsulates the notion of personal lived experience(s). It is a useful shorthand term within which we can now move the conversation onto how, semiotically-speaking, to find ways to hook and retain the audience’s attention for while. Remember, whatever a creative designs or illustrates will be immediately competing for attention amongst all the other visual ‘noise’ of 21st century existence.
What clues can be found within examining the lifeworld of the target audience, which may be useful when developing the aesthetic’s visual language? This is where the early sketching by creatives meets Peirce’s first phenomenological level of Iconic representation of a Concept. It is within these clues the perceptual sign-action trigger can be crafted.
In last week’s episode we discussed the sign-action determination flow between a) the thing to be communicated, b) how an encoded semiotic sign for that thing can represent it, and c) how from that thing’s semiotic representation, meaning can be extracted from just the sign, so the thing can be decoded and understood. Phenomenologically, in Peirce, each of those three points in the determination flow contain a further three levels of complexity.
We do not need to go any deeper into that part of Peirce for at least two more Semiosis 101 seasons, but I gave a brief outline of these levels in season one’s episodes 1.7 and 1.8. What is important from this, in the context of this week’s episode, is what bearing each of the three determination flow points have on hooking attention. In point A) of the determination flow the semiotic communication has to begin. The sign has to be perceived. But first it has to encoded. Peirce calls this the Object.
From a designer-centric point of view, this term is not very …useful.
So in Semiosis 101, I substitute Concept as an analogue which will be more conducive to the creative’s established design process.
In a similar way, at point B) Peirce calls the semiotic sign that encodes the Object/Concept through representing it, the Representamen. Again, as a creative analogue I substitute the word Representation to keep the flow clear in the creative’s understanding.
Finally, at point C) the decoded meaning is successfully made (hopefully) from the Representamen/Representation as an Interpretation. This is my Semiosis 101 analogue for Peirce’s term of Interpretant. The micro-level determination flow explains the flow of the sign-action, but Semiosis is open-ended. It is not a simple “1,2,3 bingo!” process.
Semiosis is cyclical, as once the C) point of Interpretation is reached, further Concepts through encoded signs can be discovered, leading the audience deeper into discovering the meaning. It is worthwhile to consider in the sign-action determination flow that as C) is the Interpreted stage, we can at a macro-level point of understanding place the target audience as a macro-analogue of C). Therefore, at this macro-level, B) is an analogue to the creative, with A) an analogue of the client’s brief.
The starting point of the client’s brief for the macro-determination flow’s Object/Concept to Represent, should be thought of more as the summarising by the client of intent for exploration, rather than a specification list.
Are you still with me?
Good.
We are building now to the payoff on how to hook and retain audience attention.
Architect Richard MacCormac reinforces this thought by pointing out that, this exploration of the needs of the brief is an emergent activity that is reflective and evolving. Phenomenology helps creatives to find appropriate hooks into the attention of the target audience. The audience’s lifeworld/lived experiences with the Concept is an exploratory internal/external interaction of visual possibilities. These possibilities may become visual shorthand to things that the audience are familiar with already, through sketching.
Donald Schön refers to this sketching/ideation moment as between a situation and designer in a sort of conversation. This dualism between the creative and the thing to communicate, can be enhanced by the creative considering a visual shorthand to the audience.The lowest level of semiotic Representation of the Concept is Iconic representation. Think basic visual building blocks that individually are ephemeral, but once composited into a context, begin to encode meaning.
I will re-use a favourite visual example of what I mean. I will return to our faithful panda to demonstrate once more how attention can be hooked.
A black splodge shape is just that.
Put a second smaller black splodge or two near the first.
Add a few black marks, here, there…
All of a sudden a Representation of what appears to be an animal emerges.
If, as the audience, in your lifeworld you have experience of this type of animal, you can name it as a panda.
If from this point you realise, by a socio-cultural reference within your lifeworld, that this now is a logo, well…
We will conclude this ninth season two episode by summarising where we now are. In the panda example a black splodge is just that. Once its compositional context is perceived, the same black splodge begins to suggest something more. At this stage the black splodge’s sign-action has been triggered by the audience’s perception. The black splodge is familiar to an ear, a thigh, etc. only if the quality is recognised as a resemblance to something the audience has in their lived experience. The black splodge is a simple sketched element.
The black splodge is a basic visual communication building block.
The black splodge is Iconic representation.
The black splodge has hooked and retained the audience’s attention.
It is just a black splodge AND a powerful sign-action poised to trigger deeper meaning!
Come back next week for another semiotic question to be answered.
Watch the free video on YouTube for the full impact…