Note: This post is late for the sole purpose that one of my lovely neighbours decided to renovate and upon digging found a curious little wire, which happened to be the phone line for my street. Although the internet was only out for 5 days, this caused a chain reaction of trying to catch up with work that can only be done online.

Within this weeks tutorial, we discussed the use of semiotics in design. We started by discussing Ferdinand de Saussure a Swiss linguist who created the theory of a sign being made up of both the signifier and the signified. The signifier is the word, whilst the signified is the what associations the audience has with the word (a picture of a dog in their heads).  Secondly, we discussed Charles Sanders Peirce, who also had s definition of what a sign was. Pierce put forward the idea that a sign is made of three subcategories:

• Representamen – The form which makes the sign (such as the word)
• Object – The object to which the sign refers.
• Idea – Interpretation in the mind.

After this, we then defined the different signifiers. There are three categories:

• Icon – Icons are symbolism that anyone from any background could understand, examples of this are male and female toilet signs, arrows, red cross.
• Symbol – symbols need cultural context to understand, examples of this are question marks and religious symbolism like the cross and star of David.
• Index – Index is where a sign is a literal image or depiction of the object. This can be seen with traffic light signs and stroller parking.

The class was split into groups of two and we were all given an image of propaganda from WWII and asked to identify all examples of signifiers within the image.

My group’s image was “She’s a WOW” by Adolph Treidler.

The Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies. (2011). “She’s a WOW” – The Rockwell Center for American Visual Studies. [online] Available at: https://www.rockwell-center.org/essays-illustration/shes-a-wow/ [Accessed 25 Aug. 2018].

Our discussion of this image found a few examples of these signifiers, such as the clenched fist and straight stance being an iconic symbol of power and independence, while the red used in the bandana. For symbols, the bandana is a cultural icon of J. Howard Miller’s “We can do it!”, which depicts the fictional character Rosie the Riveter. I also believe another symbol is the use of script font for “she’s a”. This gives a delicate female touch which I believe is only conveyed in Latin character languages. Index was pretty simple, the hats on the right are pretty literal of their job and the shell could have the meaning of war, but I believe it just conveys the meaning that she makes ammunition.

I did raise the question with my partner of, could bold lettering be an icon, since it stands out across all language barriers, and this is where I find some troubles with the definitions.

Overall I found this topic intriguing none the less, but also hard to follow since there were so many subcategories of semiotics. I did, however, understand the signifier and the three categories that it encompasses fairly well.