Semiotics.

Understanding the basic outline of Semiotics.

Semiotic from the greek meaning ‘observant of signs’

Today we have been looking about the meaning of semiotics and how it is much easier to  understand semiotics through language rather than visual commuication.

Ferdinand Saussure was the discoverer of semiotics but we began with the idea of ‘The Sign’

When an act of communication happens a sign is created. This consisted of a signified and a signifier. If these were both registered in the act of communication whats called a ‘sign’ is formed.

The signified is how the signifier has been registered in the mind of the person receiving the message.

The signifier is the word/object/thing that signals something such as a spoke or written word.

A signifier for example could be a ‘mouse’ although it is a computer mouse I am talking bout it could be interpreted in different ways for example the animal.

A sign doesn’t have to be intentional and it doesn’t have to be correct. It is very easy to misinterpret a signifier however there is many different ways we can make our signifiers easier to interpret in the right way.

‘Signified’ – The problem arises when there is no garantee how the signified is interpreted/thought of.

Looking at words to use to describe semiotics.

Denotation and Connotation.

D- is the simplest way level of what is seen for example heard smelt and so on.

C- is what that means to you for example the things it makes you thing of.

When trying to make my design work in this project and in the future I will need to have limited connotations to try to make the audience do/react in the way I have planned.

Next we looked at Polysemic images. Polysemic images are images that have a lot of connotations; most of the time these images would have what is called an ‘anchor’ which is just a headline to make the imagery easily understood by the audience.

We did a task looking a different polysemic images and divergently thinking giving them labels on what signified ideas we came up with when looking at the images. Here slow are the images we looked at and the labels I came up with.

Horror film DVD cover.

Murder House.

Wizard of Oz.

Drug House

Back of a book.

Th amityville horror DVD cover.

House for sale.

Healthcare advert.

Equality in the workplace.

Virus charity advert.

NHS pay cuts.

Fear.

We also briefly looked at whats called ‘Arbitrariness’. This is where the idea that languages is symbolic and has to be learned and is important to do so. It promotes the idea that language is also evolved.

Process Communication

‘Design is a funny word. Some people think design means how it looks. But of course, if you dig deeper, it’s really how it works and what people get from it’

Intentional Fallacy:

Definition: ‘(in literary theory) the fallacy of basing an assessment of a work on the author’s intention rather than on one’s response to the actual work.’

Intentional Fallacy is when someone creates a meaning to something and it has not been looked at and understood in the way it has been intended.

I have researched this further and found an interesting article from -http://education-portal.com/the-intentional-fallacy-summary

‘Art critics, students, and patrons of the arts alike have speculated on Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, theMona Lisa and his intentions for it. Some say he intended to capture her smile; others say he intended to catch her in keeping a secret; still, others speculate that he wanted to depict the intentions of a woman’s soul.

However, without jumping into a time machine and interviewing da Vinci himself, how are we to know his intentions? Moreover, is this a valid line of reasoning for evaluating a work of art? Does the meaning of a work of art and our estimation of its value even come from the artist’s intentions?

In the mid-20th century, in what would become both a philosophical and literary groundbreaking criticism, William K. Wimsatt Jr. and Monroe C. Beardsley published ‘The Intentional Fallacy.’ In it, they counter the contemporary assumption that the original creator’s intention for a work was equal to the meaning and merit of the work. This raise serious questions in the critical realm about intentionality, autobiography, cultural context, and the fixed or unfixed nature of meaning.’

Artist Georgia O’Keffe. She mesmerised with her gorgeously surreal New Mexico landscapes and New york cityscapes, but, somehow, her name has become known by work that had been misinterpreted as vaginal flowers. This they were not. Visual communication is important.

How this could be an issue : It is important that my imagery creates a meaning that is not misinterpreted and my target audience understands what I am trying to portray otherwise my poster will not serve its purpose.

You must always communicate in any works.

We looked at David Carson’s article ‘Bryan Ferry’ He used nothing but symbols throughout this piece although his message is still easily read. It was clearly intentional for the symbols not being able to be read as he thought ‘Bryan Ferry’ was boring and was unnecessary for people to read about him. The colour pallet used is very sickening with the dull used of colour and the greens used. This visual communication has been thoroughly looked into with the symbol and colour use. David Carson’s personality shows in his visual communication. He communicates exactly what he means to.

It is important to communicate your own personality and to look at how your own personality in design affects fallacy.

3 kinds of noise:

Technical/Logistical: A bus advertisement, it could be peeling off? or a lorry could be driving next to it? Light could be preventing us from being able to read it?

Semantic/Understanding: For instance body language it could be interpreted differently from people from different countries? It could be interpreted as offensive or not understood at all.

Effectiveness: It may be more intriguing to some of your target more than others?For example below.. this may not be attracting all target audience, and could be found offensive by the way the model is being portrayed.

Communication in design is important. If you don’t get it right it could do the opposite to what you intended!!