What is semiotic theory?

When writing about how gestalt theory informs design and reflecting on my past logo designs it felt only natural to progress from that to semiotic theory. I learnt the basics of semiotics when studying for my BA in Graphic Design and felt I understood then how it influences and informs the practice. But this time I have gone much deeper and I have to admit it has taken ALOT of reading to fully get my head around the theory again. I began to go down quite a rabbit hole of semiotics and how it informs the visual world around us, but decided to take a step back and stick to what I feel are the important parts!

Semiotics in its most simplest form is the study of signs and symbols and their use or interpretation. I found it much easier to make sense of the theory, and break down the parts I wanted to study further, by creating a mind map (Fig.1).

Fig.1 Semiotics mind map

I’ll start by talking about the linguist Ferdinand de Saussure, where the theory began, and his idea of signs being made up of a signifier and the signified. From there I’ll talk about how Charles Sanders Peirce developed the theory and moved it more into the visual world. Then lastly I’ll take about Roland Barthes and his ideas of denotation and connotation.

‘A sign is something which stands to somebody for something in some respect or capacity. It addresses somebody, that is, creates in the mind of that person an equivalent sign, or perhaps a more developed sign. The sign which it creates I call the interpretant of the first sign. The sign stands for something, its object.’ - Charles Sanders Peirce

Saussure (1857-1913) was a Swiss Professor and is widely considered one of the founders of 20th-century linguistics and one of two major founders of semiotics. Instead of focusing his theory on the origins of language and its historical aspects, Saussure concentrated on the patterns and functions of language itself. Saussure looked at language in an entirely different way and his model was broken down into two parts that make up the sign: the signifier and the signified (Fig.2)

Fig.2 Signifer and Signified

SIGNIFIER

The signifier is the physical object, it’s simply the written word, sound or image that conveys meaning or creates communication. For example the word ‘dog’ communicates the object, but the word itself bears no resemblance to the animal.

SIGNIFIED

The signified is the meaning, thought or object that is represented by the signifer. The relationship between the signifier ‘dog’ and the thing signified is a completely arbitrary one. A sign is then produced when these two elements are brought together.


Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) is the philosopher who is recognised as the founder of the American tradition of semiotics. Whereas Saussure was mainly interested in language, Peirce was more interested in how we make sense of the world around us. Peirce’s model for the sign is triangular and deals with the sign itself and the user.

It’s Peirce’s development of semiotics that relates more to the visual world and therefore more informs graphic design and how we interpret visual communication. He catagorised signs into three parts, icons, symbols and indexes (Fig.3).

Fig.3 Icons, symbols and indexes

ICON

This resembles the sign. A photograph of someone could be described as an iconic sign in that it physically resembles the thing it represents.

INDEX

There is a direct link between the sign and the object. In this category, smoke is an index of fire and a tail is an index of a dog. Traffic signs in the street are index signs: they have a direct link to the physical reality of where they are placed, such as at a junction or at the brow of a hill.

SYMBOL

These signs have no logical connection between the sign and what it means. They rely exclusively on the reader having learnt the connection between the sign and its meaning. The red cross is a symbol that we recognise to mean aid. Flags are symbols that represent territories or organisations.


This then leads me to the theorist Roland Barthes (1915-1980) and his interpretation of signs and semiotics. He challenged Saussure and Peirce’s models by concentrating on the part played by the reader and the meaning drawn by the sign. His ideas centre on two different levels of signification: denotation and connotation (Fig.4).

Fig. 4 Denotation and Connotation

Barthes explained denotation as the physical object, so the object that we actually see. Let’s go back to the example of a dog. If we write the word ‘dog’ in an orange circle, its literal meaning is the word dog in an orange circle. It is the primary meaning. Whereas connotation is what you think when you read or see the object.

Connotation is arbitrary in that the meanings brought to the image are based on rules that the reader has learnt. These rules are influenced by the culture the reader has been surrounded by their life experiences. So if someone sees the word dog written in an orange circle, one may think of a beloved pet and feel an emotion of love and companionship. However, another person may remember a dark time in their life when they were chased by a neighbours vicious dog, so may feel anxious and fearful.

I feel the theory of connotation heavily informs graphic design. As a graphic designer I rely on the reader to interpret my work in the way I want them to and to take away the meaning I have attempted to convey. My design work is shaped by thinking about past cultural experiences and expectations, in the hope that others make sense of it in the same way.

For example if we think about logo design, we can begin making sense of the icons and images we use by placing them into Peirce’s three categories (icon, index and symbol). However, the real meaning of the logo and the emotions we feel when viewing them is understood when we relate it back to denotation and connotation.

I’m also interested in how we can apply this to typography. It made me think back to the ‘why’ questions, when thinking about a theory. For example, why do I choose one typeface for a private school prospectus, but I choose a different typeface for a charity annual report? This neatly relates back to connotation and how we interpret those typefaces, all due to our past cultural experiences and expectations stored in our visual memory bank.


REFERENCES

• CROW, D. (2018). VISIBLE SIGNS: An introduction to semiotics in the visual arts. Place of publication not identified: BLOOMSBURY VISUAL ARTS.
• Behance. (n.d.). Explaining Semiotics - Infographic. Retrieved from http://www.behance.net/gallery/9474813/Explaining-Semiotics-Infographic
• Semiotics [Semiotics infographic]. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEglKUJ_AVXfp4gMkk66AN2VpVCjX1WVnE50106JXkdmHGYqwdI6KnghdjdiyxzHjzNz3qvyfLTdI_xaLCoHwzTkvELaSH5YLlraEIlHNhZnsFVvFu6YZxwq3QbHGnKBCElDu18AfQ5eNvc/s1600/Semiotics Infographic.jpg