Class Semiotic

The curricular unit Semiotics aims to initiate the students in the problematics of a new field of studies that recognizes the permanent interpellation of the visual experience as one of the main critical issues of contemporaneity. The curricular unit will give students a critical insight into the analysis of images, allowing them to establish links and antecedents to the contemporary challenges of visual culture, to understand visual aspects as a source of cultural transmission, and to explore the relationships and interferences that cultural systems bring to the visual identification process and the understanding of the world and reality. This curricular unit will focus, above all, on the opportunities to create new and creative communication strategies that respond effectively and creatively to the most diverse challenges posed every day by an increasingly demanding modern society. 

Not applicable

1. Image, sign and significance. C. Peirce and F. Saussure significance models. 2. Categories of signs. Icon, index and symbol. Iconic and arbitrary signs. Convection. Paradigms and syntagms.  3. Significance orders. Denotation, connotation, myth and symbolic order.  4. The text and image relations. Interaction and complementarity.  5. Significant plastic and composition I. Gestalt Theory. Strong points. Weight, balance and symmetry. Lines and shapes.  6. Significant plastic and composition II. Image sections. Axial, focused, in-depth, by values and sequencial constructions. Frameworks. Angles.  7. Color and their meanings. Color and light. Color systems. Psychology of color. Color and communication.  8. The written and visual language. Typographic and topographic plan. The word-image. Visual identity. The narratives of the brand. 

An active methodology based on Project-Based-Learning (PBL) will be used. The aim is for students to investigate and produce critical discourse in the field of design through the presentation of various practical cases. Bibliographic and cinematographic resources will be used in classes to present theoretical content and case studies, in order to consolidate knowledge. Practice will involve developing work in the classroom using the tools provided by Semiotics.

ABDULLAH, Rayan; HÜBNER Roger . Pictograms, Icons, and Signs. Thames & Hudson. 2006 BARTHES, Roland. Elementos de semiologia, Edições 70, 1985 CHANDLER, Daniel. Semiotics: The Basics. Routledge, 2017. CROW, David. Visible Signs: An Introduction to Semiotics. Ava, 2003 FRUTIGER, Adrian. Signos, símbolos, marcas, señales (Spanish Edition). GG JARDI, Enric. Pensar com Imágenes. GG, 2012 JOLY, Martine. Introdução à análise da imagem, Edições 70, 2019 LAURENT, Gervereau. Ver, compreender, analisar as imagens. Edições 70, 2007 MOLLERUP, Per Mollerup. Marks of Excellence: The History and Taxonomy of Trademarks.  Phaidon Press Ltd, 2006