Semiotics

Semiotics refers to the studying of signs and includes studies into how we know what even the most simplest of signs means. It also has to do with language and the words we give certain things. We have grown up with these signs and our language and that is why we know that G-L-A-S-S refers to a container, generally of liquid, made out of the material glass.
This is a video i found made by a student and was shown at the Museum of Contemporary Art in 2008.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLaQJ_Kr0UM

The video is about advertising semiotics and how advertisers use our knowledge of signs and language in order to pursuade us to buy certain products. Signs such as road signs are designed to make our lives easier and make it quicker for us to take in information, as instead or reading a sign telling us that we are able to go the national spead limit we see this and instantly know what to do.

http://www.parkingpillocks.co.uk/images/national.gif

There are three types of signs and these are. Icon, Index and symbol. An icon is a sign where the meaning directly relates to the sign through similarities and perhaps appearence.

An idex sign is when the meaning is related to the sign somehow. Or has a cause and effect relationship.

A symbol usually has an unrelated meaning. Whereby there is no cause and effect relationship and you cannot see any similarites between the sign and the meaning. This is how our language works.

Advertisments usually use signs to sell something to us really quickly. This is because they have to attract out attention, relay the idea or product to us and provide us with the information we need to buy the product in the short period of time we spend looking at individual posters. As we have become accustomed to trying to find a meaning in a symbol or image, signs are able to become more and more simple and take the form of an index sign.

References
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLaQJ_Kr0UM
http://www.parkingpillocks.co.uk/images/national.gif