Free Semiosis 101 Transcript 5.2:
What Can Semiotics Do For ME? A Partial Book Preview
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the episode published on Semiosis 101 on Weds 14th Oct, we will preview chapter one of my 2027 Semiotics for Designers and Illustrators book to discuss how pragmatic semiotics (Semiosis) works when applied to illustrations and designs. Why? Well, to enhance how you visually communicate to your target audiences, obvs.
Watch the free episode on YouTube for the full impact…
…and here is the episode’s transcript.
What can semiotics do for ME?
This has been a core theme in Semiosis 101, but in season four we recalibrated this from “ME” to your audience. This refocusing of semiotics onto how to enhance how you visually communicate to YOUR audience is also core to my book - Semiotics for Designers and Illustrators (see description for link to buy the book).
My book goes much deeper into applying pragmatic semiotic theory into how you design or illustrate, so this episode will preview chapter one of my book to discuss how pragmatic semiotics (Semiosis) works. Chapter one has three important sections: one to briefly contextualise Peirce's pragmatic semiotic theory for designers and illustrators; before the next two sections introduce you to the semiotic determination flow and Semiosis’ semiotic power levels to visually communicate meaning.
The first job that chapter one focuses on is to explain what Semiosis is and where applying it in illustration or design begins. Semiosis is Charles Sanders Peirce’s name for the semiotic sign-action that happens as a result of the representation of a concept has on your target audience’s interpretation of what is meant. Semiosis is the action of the semiotic sign.
Therefore, chapter one immediately makes the connection between pragmatic semiotic signs and the visual language you use in your designs or illustrations to visually communicate. This takes your aesthetic beyond mere denotation (e.g. a drawing of an apple IS an apple) into semiotically mediated connotational meaning (e.g. an apple means a city, etc.). It is within the simplest visual element you use in your design or illustration where semiotic signs already reside.
As I say in this section of chapter one, “As you sketch potential solutions to your client’s brief, you craft your visual language to semiotically convey meaning. As your ideation phase progresses when you generate possible ideas to answer the client’s brief, you are in fact semiotically encoding meaning into your visual language that is interpretable.” By learning to semiotically control how you facilitate your target audience to interpret the intended messaging affords you the opportunity to Encode. Richer. Meaning.
This is pragmatically semiotically achieved through understanding Peirce’s first triad in Semiosis of concept, representation and interpretation. Semiotic sign-action has a connecting flow between the concept to be semiotically conveyed, through how it is represented to an audience, so that representation of the concept has an effect on the interpretation by the target audience.
With each interpretative cycle of this determination flow, the act of Semiosis continues, growing in more meaning being interpreted from your visual language by your target audience, until they understand what’s being visually communicated …or something else grabs their attention and they lose interest. This brings us to the importance of your aesthetic. From a pragmatic semiotic perspective your aesthetic is not ‘passive beauty’ but ACTIVE visual language, which is encoded with semiotic signs to trigger the audience’s interest AND perception.
As chapter one progresses to explain the fundamentals of Semiosis’ determination flow, your humble line comes under semiotic scrutiny (as does the promiscuity of meaning (but we’ll come back to that in a minute)). Your humble line is a mark, a visual language building block, that is also a pragmatic Iconic semiotic sign.
As you sketch ideas, compositions, shapes that may eventually become more complex meaning-bearing elements, the marks you use begin to weakly semiotically communicate something to someone else. As I have said many times on Semiosis 101 (and in my book), you’ve always been working semiotically - you just haven’t realised it - yet.
If you want to read more about how to encode richer meaning, obviously check out my book, but also the Semiosis 101 Semiotic Resource on semiosis101.online for additional information. Links are below in the description.
I mentioned a minute ago the ‘promiscuity of meaning.’ This is a reminder by Professor Timothy Meyer1 that meaning is contextual. Connotationally, a depiction of an apple only means a large city in a certain context. In a different context, an ‘apple’ representation would have different meanings.
If the action of Semiosis is predicated on the effect of the representation of the concept on the interpretation of the audience is central to semiotic sign-action, then how is the intended meaning visually communicated?
Well, chapter one only begin to answer this (after all there are nine chapters). Peirce wrote in his 1872 essay How to Make Our Ideas Clear, “the whole function of thought is to produce habits of action […] what a thing means is simply what habits it involves.2” In perceiving a visual element (a semiotic sign) as meaning-bearing, your audience begins to subconsciously interpret meaning based on prior lived experiences, cultural suppositions and impressions they already possess. Therefore, to semiotically enhance your visual language to visually communicate what you intend, you need to also consider your audience’s prior experiences.
The visual language of ‘an apple’ has an effect on how its meaning is interpreted by an audience. The familiarity of ‘an apple’ shape affords multiple possible connotative meanings to different audiences, and the power of Semiosis has an effect on the minds of the audience for them to initially perceive possible interpretations. Then the cycle of Semiosis ‘points them to’ suggested interpretations, and then ultimately to a resolved meaning.
To semiotically enhance your visual language Semiosis’ triadic structure has three ‘power levels.’ As you are aware, Peirce’s theoretical language is quite obtuse as he calls these: The Interpretant, The Object, and The Representamen; so I’ll refer to his trichotomies in plainer language. We can call these Perception Power, Communication Power and Delivery Power. Each of these semiotic powers has its own power triad.
From weak to strong, audience perception can semiotically be possible, suggested or resolved. From weak to strong, semiotic communication of the concept can be familiar to, existent of, or a proxy for the intended concept. Finally, from weak to strong, semiotic delivery of meaning can be instant, mediated, or agreed.
The power of a semiotic sign (a meaning-bearing visual element in your visual language) is determined by how perception, communication and delivery levels fluctuate. Weak semiotic visual communication of meaning happens when all power levels operate at a possible familiar instant level. Peirce calls this a Qualisign, a semiotic sign consisting of mere qualities that can be interpreted as maybe having some deeper meaning. Think of Qualisigns as semiotic visual triggers in your aesthetic that grab and then holds your audience’s attention long enough.
Interpretation of meaning doesn’t just happen all at once. It needs to be semiotically mediated before what is meant is agreed. The instant a Qualisign triggers possible meaning from familiar visual qualities mediation begins. The crucial awareness that my book’s chapter one provides the reader, is that the representation of meaning ultimately is a visual proxy for the intended concept.
Semiosis’ triadic sign-action powers clarifies interpreted meaning in the mind of the audience, to a point where what is represented becomes generally agreed that THIS now means THAT. But before semiotic signs can mediate the audience to socio-culturally agree meaning, semiotic signs lie dormant in plain sight in your illustration’s or design’s aesthetic, until perceived as meaning-bearing by the audience. This is why Peirce’s semiotic theory of Semiosis is predicated on the sign’s action.
In Semiosis, semiotic visual communication of meaning goes beyond the client-creative relationship. Semiosis includes the audience in the act of visual communication. For the intended meaning to be visually communicated, the audience needs to be active in interpreting visual elements (semiotic signs) as proxies for the represented concept. This is what chapter one in my book begins to explain, before moving deeper into explaining and contextualising Peirce’s semiotic theory. In the next episode we will focus on expanding on what chapter one discusses.
Remember to subscribe to Semiosis 101 on YouTube to be notified when it’s published. Or become a Semiosis 101 Producer on Patreon and watch all future episodes months ahead of YouTube …plus a full episode archive, with other exclusive Patreon-only video content and a Semiosis 101 Producer credit.
Hint… hint…
1 Meyer, T. (2001) Pragmatism and Mediated Communication. In D.K. Perry (ed.). American Pragmatism and Communication Research. New Jersey: Lawrence Erlbaum Association, 171-184.
2 Thayer, H.S. (1989) Pragmatism: The Classic Writings. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc. p51
