The Signs Around Us

In our world of visual technologies, we are surrounded everywhere by signs of various types, designed specifically to get a message across. If you are interested in this topic please read on.

In our world of visual technologies, we are surrounded everywhere by signs of various types, designed specifically to get a message across. Logos, for example, signify particular brands that each have their own particular set of references. Commercial advertisements repeat their messages over and over on televisions and in movie theaters. All around us, signs present themselves as our world.

Signage refers specifically to graphics that are designed to get people’s attention and orient them in a particular space toward a particular purchasing experience. A variety of technologies exist that allow for the construction of signage. Signage can be made from several different materials, including: wood, metal (especially aluminum), glass tubing filled with neon gas, light emitting diodes (LEDs), and many more.

Signage, in general is mostly conceived of in terms of an object that refers to a specific place, such as a shop. People want their signage to be visually stimulating and instantly recognizable. Signs can also provide information, such as directions. In many cities, especially in tourist districts, they direct people to specific areas and attractions. Everything from shape, color, font, tone, and message must be considered in the construction of a sign.

Signs must not necessarily directly resemble the object or place they describe. Between the sign and the object being signified, there exists a gap. It is within that gap that the meaning is created, both by the creator and owner of the sign as well as the viewer of the sign. Just how is meaning created? One could say that it exists at the intersection of a network of people, each with their own references for interpreting visuals and text.

Signs, especially in terms of brands, can have such a flexible, vague, and ambiguous set of meanings that people may substitute a wide variety of references when interpreting them. The only way to affect that interpretation is through more visual things that provide additional information and context. In the case of television commercials, certain assumptions underlie the obvious meaning of the advertisement, which creates a sense of brand identity in the viewer. However, over time, advertisements have begun to detach completely from any clear message. Constant modulation of a flexible message has become increasingly used as the message without a message in ad campaigns. These trends fit in well with a youth culture that contains themes of randomness and referential humor.

The sign, as a vague referent, surrounds us in all aspects of our lives. With the proliferation of screens in our world, the average person spends increasingly more time being visually stimulated.

As time passes, meaning is becoming the result of endless chains and networks of references. As you can see, if any business is to thrive, it must use signage to direct people as well as create a sense of meaning and identity between the product, the brand, and the consumer. Visual messages are able to make the customer’s attention another piece of the puzzle in the network of profitable ways to use time and space.

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