Semiology
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- runDMB0
"Travels in Hyperreality" by Umberto Eco might be worth a look. It's readable at least.
There's a basics book by Daniel Chandler which might be helpful:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obi…
No idea if it's any good or not as I haven't read it.
- valentim0
kelpie, the debate here is about how really important the whole subject is, what on it that help us?
I agrre with you, it seats there, and it works and clicks auto when you need it....
- rafalski0
Thanks, I will search for Barthes.
This topic sort of brings me to the old discussions about web standards vs. Flash (animated visuals w. sound). A lot of people believe every piece of information can be sorted into xml structure, which, styled according to standards would convey meaning just as well as "unnecessarily" animated sites. I always argued that a huge part of the content lies in the form - shape, image, motion..
- imakedesign0
ha! i come online to get away from my dissertation and here it all is !
great!
- kelpie0
surely it sinks into a kind of background knowledge? your not going to sit about debating it, but it'll be inthere informing your decisions...
- valentim0
but isn´t part of your job? or was it just important when you had to do it to pass your degree?
- determinedmoth0
Oi!
determinedmoth
(Mar 9 06, 03:44)
- stem0
Roland Barthes... it's been a long time since I heard that name!
I guess we are all a bit guilty of getting caught up in the day to day. Forgetting some of the stuff we were taught.
It's the unavoidable parts to working for a living unfortunately.
Unless you are a lecturer/tutor !
- paraselene0
yeah, raf. you just start with s/z and image, music, text and then take it from there.
- valentim0
Roland Barthes is the big name on this subject, anything else just follows...
Good luck rafalski.
- valentim0
sure, that our tutors and the places we have studied are relevant towards what we will get out of the course, and stem, I have studied in London and there is, as far I am concerned a very high level understanting of semiotics in the visual education in the UK. However, if you feel that you don´t understand a subject post-graduating, defenetely you should even during your career, try to research take extra education, or simply ask about it. Just because one has a job, doesn´t mean that we can´t try to be best possible.
- stem0
Decoding signs can be a pretty subjective thing anyway, so semiotics can get pretty theoretical/academic at times, occasionally at the expense of common sense.
runDMB
(Mar 9 06, 03:37)And I like this what you said runDMB. As I have found in the past, heated discussions with fellow students and tutors. Sometimes there was a lot of 'intellectual posturing' and sometimes I would just think, for fuck's sake, a kid could understand this, why the fuck does it matter?
But they were simply getting me to think, which is what I was there for!
- paraselene0
cheers, stem. and, of course, it's one of the inherent paradoxes of the trade that, as runDMB touches on, designers communicate, analyse and perceive via visual stimuli and aren't necessarily expected to be semioticians. whereas anyone studying language, linguistics or literature is sent headlong down the alpine slope of critical theory and semantics.
coincidence?
or design?
- determinedmoth0
And as for being worthy of contribution to this thread, you have made perhaps the only positive contribution so far.
stem
(Mar 9 06, 03:41)Oi!
- rafalski0
dammit! stop blabbering, start suggesting books/articles already!
- stem0
para - maybe it says more about the 'not a proper degree' tag can be applied to design courses in the UK,and perhaps other parts of the world.
Any course which deals with language (in any form), like you say should, at the least offer a basic understanding of semiotics.
And as for being worthy of contribution to this thread, you have made perhaps the only positive contribution so far.
- valentim0
you communicate using everything you possible know about that user! graphic design is a part of communication, a tool, semiology a part understanding of that user.
- runDMB0
Semiotics isn't a particularly easy thing to pick up.
I'm sure plenty of designers have a pretty good understanding of semiotics, without being able to express their understanding in terms a semiotician would use.
Decoding signs can be a pretty subjective thing anyway, so semiotics can get pretty theoretical/academic at times, occasionally at the expense of common sense. Then again I might just not be clever enough to understand it all.
- mr_snuggles0
it's the root of our craft and I'm struggling right now, having to design/create concepts in another language, where English expressions, humour, culture etc, just don't translate very well...
- kelpie0
I thought I was the charlatan moth? ;)