Cute Sayins That Go With Butterflies

A semiotic approach to design communication


For this session we made Hanno Ehses reading : A semiotic approach to communication design:

Communication, sign and design

H. Ehses tells us that communication is described as an object of conveying information between people, to inform, notify and clarify. To do this effectively, individuals must share common signs, ie, a set of specific social cues. It describes the work field as a processor designer, both signs as a reinforcer in the message. Semiotics



communication between two or more people is always a situation of signs, and base it consists of a hand in the sign itself and on the other side of the sign for a transport. For Peirce's definition of sign is a triple relationship depends on three variables: interpreter, mediator and object.

Morris creates three basic components of sign: Syntactic

- Problems of representation (mediator). Process of performance or production of the sign.

Pierce syntactic classification gives the following signs:

• Qualisign: The quality material, the visible appearance of the sign.
• Sinsign: A visible sign defined in time and space.
• Legisign: Represents a sign that looks the same in different representations according to certain rules.

signs that change over time are called dynamic signs. Those who depend on space and do not change over time are static. The design works mainly the latter. Semantic

- Discusses the relationship between the mediator and the object, under the meaning of representation. Your problem to address is the content, which should be designed.

Peirce's division for this is:

• Index: A sign that actually carries a causal or direct relationship to the object.
• Icon: A sign that imitates or displays the object and showing at least one attribute in common with him.
• Symbol: A sign that does not show the object is independent, but it represents arbitrarily.

Signs pictorial features such as the symbols belong to the group of icons, while the letters and ideograms, belong to the symbols. Pragmatic

- The use of signs with a purpose and effect of representation. It refers to the intent, purpose and use of signs.

Peirce divides signs Rhema, Dicent and Plot.

• Rhema: Sign with qualitative possibilities, without meaning or purpose, not false or true.
• Dicent: current sign, real. Is true or false.
• Topic: sign under a law, only real.

signs should arouse interest in the receptors so that they participate in the communicative act.

In any form of action, whether good or bad, there is a social value system, ie, social sanctions or public opinion, so pragmatics is responsible for the psychological and sociological evaluation of the signs for proper implementation.

On the other hand, the design has different functions situations: the informational, aesthetic, economic and technical. Together determine the purpose of representation with drawings and letters, the aim being truthful communication of information.

Finally, the author tells us that for the areas of design, development and realization of the representation of information should be clearly organized, understandable, meaningful and appropriate. Communication design is about visual design of the information that must be met for effective communication along the way where it is applied photography, graphics and typography, which considers aspects of information, aesthetic, economic and technical functions.


Ehses, Hanno. A Semiotic Approach to Communication Design. The Canadian Journal of Research in Semiotics, Vol IV No. 3, 1977.