COP Lecture 1 - Semiotics and the Language of Design

Had a lecture today about the language of design and how we as designers need to appreciate that we are communicating to many different people rather than just the people we associate ourselves with. We were spoke to about Semantics and how to apply them, as well as how to understand them. We were taught to appreciate that a photo of an apple isn't the apple itself, the colours will have been enhanced and the lighting will be perfect in order to give us an idea of what an apple looks like, though in reality, an apple and a picture of an apple more often than not are different. We did an exercise about symbolism and how applying colour to do different symbols can change their meaning completely, as can adding just a little bit of context. Today I learned that it doesn't matter weather what the people you're communicating is true or false, because in order to reach that market, you're going to have to communicate it anyway. The key points from the lecture were:

Visual communication is based on peoples understandings of the meanings of different symbols, signs and objects, and how adding context such as colour can change peoples understandings of them.

Visual literacy is being able to both interpret the meaning of images produced by others, as well as being able to create images that effectively communicate a meaning to other people. It also includes being able to take cultural context into consideration.

Visual Syntax is the organisation of the parts of an image. Changing the visual syntax of a picture of an object can change it's meaning, whilst the object in the picture will not change. Theses parts/elements include scale, colour, font, spacing etc.

The Visual Semantics of an image is how the image relates culturally to the process of communication. The semantics can be changed by using things like cultural references, political ideas, recognised symbols, religious beliefs etc etc.

Semiotics is the study of signs, symbolism, analogy, metaphor and communication.

A Visual Synecdoche is when part of something is used to represent the whole of something or the opposite way round, for example, the statue of liberty represents new york, but new york doesn't represent the statue of liberty. This is done when part of in image is universally recognised as only being associated with one option, for example, the statue of liberty can only be in New York.

A Visual Metonym is a symbolic image that has a close relationship with something else, which can be used as a referencing tool to communicate the idea of another thing. For example, the yellow taxi is a visual metonym of New York.

Visual Metaphors are used to transfer the meaning of one image to a different image that isn't necessarily closely related, this is done by drawing comparisons between the two images or objects.

A symbol is an image that shows an object.

A sign identifies an image as an object.

A signifier gives information about the object via the use of image.