Semiotics

Semiotics- Things you need to know if you want to design anything that is supposed to mean something. The study of signs, the production of meaning.

When you design you need to know what things mean. For example: leaf, you can have an icon of a leaf, you can have a symbol such as just the word LEAF, an index that connects to the word, or you can have metasymbol meanings, symbols that have a greater meaning to them.

In doing this you can show the representamen (the visual that grabs you), the interpretant (the meaning that you get from it), and object (what it is supposed to represent). Seeing becomes understating and that becomes what it all means. When you can get all that down, then you come up with design that will help you support the meaning you are tiring to get across to the other person.