Saussure's Semiotic Theory

Why Semiotics is Relevant in Contemporary Design

In its simplest form, the study of Semiotics can be described as the study of signs and symbols, and how they are used to represent objects, artworks, gestures and people. Umberto Eco stated that ‘semiotics is concerned with everything that can be taken as a sign’ , the semiotic theory can be applied to most aspects of everyday life as it is an interpretation of everything around us. In contemporary society, advertisements embody many signs and meanings that are hidden from the public eye. The intention of semiology is to study and decipher these hidden meanings to understand what the designer of the advertisement is really communicating. Successful design, whether it be an advertisement, artwork

The sign is composed of the ‘signifier’, the physical form of the sign, and the ‘signified’, the idea it stands for. The sign is the result of the association of the signifier and the signified. Using a car as an example, the word ‘car’ would act as the signifier and the physical car itself would be the signified. Almost a century later, the semiotician Roland Barthes introduced the theory of connotation and denotation, terms which describe the relationship between the signifier and signified, honouring Saussure’s semiology theory. The denotative function describes the literal description of the car, and the connotative function is all the words the car may evoke: something to drive, something to smash etc. The connotative function is more ‘polysomic’ than the denotative, as it refers to the socio-cultural links of the sign, generally correlated to the person’s age, gender, class and so forth. Most semioticians however, argue that no sign is purely denotative, such meanings cannot be divided. Linked to connotation is what Barthes refers to as a myth , culturally variable concepts underpinning a particular world view that varies according to the demographic, they were the dominant beliefs of the time. The evidence suggests that semiotics forms the meaning of contemporary design. Semiology is essential for contemporary design to stay relevant and meaningful, and to act as signs to convey signs and

The photograph of the ‘Panzani’ Italian pasta advertised proposes three messages: a linguistic, coded iconic and non-coded iconic message. The linguistic message is the caption and Panzani label, the coded iconic message – the scene, objects and colour collection of the different objects and composition, and the non-coded iconic message the photograph, in its literal state. There is no code to ‘de-code’ in this instance, as a photograph of a tomato is exactly that, it only represents a