Free Semiosis 101 Transcript 5.4:
5.4 The Visual Communication Phenomenon: A Case Study in Applying Semiosis
Hello readers.
In this free transcript for the episode published on Semiosis 101 on 11th November 2026, we (at break neck speed) preview the first case study from my 2027 Semiotics for Designers and Illustrators book to contextualise phenomenology in creativity. Phenomenology draws a creative’s focus ‘To the Things Themselves!’ These things are factors that the audience draw on to form their understanding of connotative messaging.
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…and here is the episode’s transcript.
The first case study preview from my book - Semiotics for Designers and Illustrators contextualises (at break neck speed) phenomenology in creativity. Phenomenology is essentially the study of phenomena, and the phenomena we are interested in are associated with visual communication, human perception and ability to interpret meaning from semiotic signs.
In my book, in my Semiosis 101 episodes, in Charles Sanders Peirce’s pragmatic semiotic theory of Semiosis, phenomenology underpins the synthesis between theory and creative practice. We can frame this as the phenomenology of communication and I advocate treating your target audience not as passive consumers but knowledge agents. The form that this phenomenology takes is a hermeneutic or interpretive phenomenology. Phenomenology draws a creative’s focus ‘To the Things Themselves!’ These things are factors that the audience draw on to form their understanding.
Hermeneutic phenomenology is beneficial to the ideation of illustrators and designers. When used as a methodology, hermeneutic phenomenology can bring to light any “hidden features of [an audience’s lived] experience that would have been overlooked.”1
In the case study I give a quick history of how Interaction Design in the 1990s exposed other designers and illustrators to the importance of audience. Yes, a more audience-centred approach to visual communication. I then springboard in the case study to a call to move from first-order thinking - a ‘god-view’ to creating - to a more empathic second-order thinking approach, where the audience’s lifeworlds (or prior reference points from lived experiences) are crucial to effective visual communication. It is within these phenomenological things that an audience draw on to interpret and understand anything new, and where miscommunication can happen.
Phenomenology underpins Peirce’s pragmatic semiotic sign-action. Saussure’s Semiological signifier/signified dyadic (twos) version of semiotic theory only goes so far, whereas Peirce’s pragmatic Semiosis has a triadic (threes) determination flow. Having a semiotic signifier and signified meaning is nothing without interpretation. The meaning is not pre-set as definitive, that when this signifier is understood it only means THIS signified message. That approach to semiotic thinking is why Klaus Krippendorff dismissed semiotics as first-order thinking - “I, the creator, say THIS visual entity means THIS.”
However, as pragmatic semiotic theory utilises and doesn’t ignore the phenomenological sphere, it is more aligned with second-order thinking. This form of thinking puts the creator in a relationship WITH the target audience as they create. Semiotic sign-action is the effect that semiotic representation of a concept has on the audience’s interpretation.
We can frame the difference as interpretation is a visual communication deal-breaker! Let me give you a quick example using a humble “apple.”
God-view (first-order thinking)
Signifier = Apple
Signified = New York City
Empathic approach (second-order thinking)
Concept = New York City
Representation = the shape and quality of the apple is different to a real apple, or a fairy tale apple, or the classical apple of the Bible’s Garden of Eden, or a brand mark. The Iconic shape of a “big apple” shares the qualities of a real apple, but its particular qualities are Symbolic of a large city. This meaning is generally learnt rather than intrinsic to the “apple.”
Interpretation = the audience’s prior references of an existent “apple” (Indexical representation) allows them to see “apple” as a proxy for the concept - in this socio-cultural context.
First-order thinking assumes meaning is obvious. Whereas second-order thinking accepts other interpretations of meaning could also be valid, IF the semiotic representation of the intended concept doesn’t try to narrow the latitude for being misinterpreted. Semiosis’ innate triadic structuring addresses this problem, and affords you illustrators and designers to semiotically shape your visual language to facilitate the desired interpretation. If you want to read more about Phenomenology check out my Semiosis 101 Semiotic Resource on semiosis101.online. Link is below in the description.
By spending time early on in my book (and in this Semiosis 101 episode) I am working hard to get you creatives to rethink your own creative assumptions. I frame this as a binary closed loop between what your client wants, so you’ll give them that. This frame of mind is unhelpful.
My book’s first case study advocates for you to adapt your creative mindset away from a closed loop into a more open loop between client > creative > audience at a macro level. At a micro level this interrelationship can be seen as Semiosis’ semiotic determination flow between concept > representation > interpretation. This macro/micro phenomenological framing of your creative practice is essentially a hermeneutic circle of interpretation (which I will end this episode on very soon).
Before I get to that, this recalibration of your creative mindset is what this season’s theme is all about - a pragmatic semiotic turn in your creative practice. This turn in your thinking, which the case study offers, is from thinking that as the creative “I say THIS means THAT,” to, “if my visual language uses THIS will they interpret THAT?”
That pragmatic semiotic turn in your creative thinking is the key here. With the latter approach, you open your ideation up to a more empathic approach to encoding richer meaning in your aesthetic decisions - you recalibrate your existing creative process to become more audience-centric.
As this case study discusses all this in the context of a philosophical phenomenological sphere (which may at first seem to you as woo-woo and woolly), I do spend time contextualising you, the reader, to some deeper philosophy around hermeneutic phenomenology. Within a limited word count, this part of the case study gives you a quick précis of philosopher Martin Heidegger’s Dasein - his existentialist exploration of our being-in-the-world. Throughout my book, I do augment Peirce’s pragmatic theory with additional elements from parallel philosophies, including other Pragmatists, Dasein, and Gestalt theory.
Elsewhere in my book I deal specifically with Peirce’s phenomenological states of Firstness, Secondness and Thirdness, in which ideation and audience perception operate. I also use Max van Manen’s four existential lenses of Lived Body, Lived Time, Lived Space and Lived Human Relationships to help you process what you can phenomenologically glean from your audience’s lived experiences using Abductive reasoning. So this early existential side step I take in the first case study gives you the wider philosophical grounding you need.
The final part of the case study ends on one of my PhD experiments that informed my first synthesis of Peirce’s Semiosis with visual communication practice. Early in the episode I introduced you to a macro/micro approach to understanding any act of interpretation. A hermeneutic circle of interpretation as a phenomenological tool.
The phrase “as above, so below” is an apt paraphrase to why a hermeneutic circle is relevant to a book on pragmatic semiotic sign-action. As I state in this case study, “at a macro phenomenological level, your audience’s whole understanding can only exist due to the micro fragments of your audience’s pre-understanding. A whole interpretation cannot exist without the many micro interpretations based on pre-understanding. Likewise, the micro representations that form a whole aesthetic cannot represent an intended concept without connecting with the audience’s pre-understanding.”
The movement through a hermeneutic circle ensures that to understand things at a macro level you need to understand the micro level, and vice versa. This circularity of thinking, considering two levels of “being” at once can be summed up in the analogous Gestalt of visual figure/ground.
Does a visual element exist only by its positive figure or by the negative-shaped background space? Or because of both? It is at this level of creative thinking that Semiosis gives you the theoretical scaffolding to shape your visual language to enrich deeper (intended) meaning. This first case study provides you with the philosophical scaffolding, which you can use to begin recalibrating your own creative mindset. In the next episode we focus on previewing chapters two and three of Semiotics for Designers and Illustrators.
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1 (Lopez, K.A. and Willis, D.G. (2004) Descriptive versus Interpretive Phenomenology: Their Contributions to Nursing Knowledge. Qualitative Health Research, 14, p734).
