What I learned today : Semiotics

This is my 30 minute dive into the world design.

Semiotics: A study of signs and the ways they produce meaning.

“The word semiotics comes from the American philosopher Charles Sanders Pierce, who examined the signs as a system of relationships. He developed a system based on the relation between the thing and what it signifies.”

Semiotics examples of Icon, Symbol, Index

How each category relates with the meaning is rather arbitrary and contemporary as you can see in the example above.

The system is built and separated into two main parties:

The signifier: the sign

The signified: what it represents

1. Icons : An Icon sign is a sign that resembles something, such as photographs of people. An icon can also be illustrative or diagrammatic. A human symbol could refer to humanity, male being, or even number of people.
2. Symbols : A symbol has no logical meaning between it and the object. A good example would be the homepage icon which is a house. Flags are symbols which represent countries or organizations.
3. Index : An index signs is a sign where there is a direct link between the sign and the object. The majority of traffic signs are Index signs as they represent information which relates to a location.

As you can see the three categories clearly operate as a Venn diagram that shares signifiers but for different uses.

This is my 30 minute dive into the world design.