SEMIOTICS 2000:

"SEBEOK'S CENTURY"

New York

EDITED BY

Scott Simpkins University of North Texas

John Deely University of St. Thomas, Houston

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Ottawa

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Toronto

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SHORTcurs TO MEANING, OR DIAGRAMS AND MAKING SENSE OlIT OF IMAGE-TEXT DE-SIGNS

ElzbieJa T. Kazmierczak Arl Department. SUNY al Buffalo

In this presentation I intend to open up a discussion on considering de­sign, including information design, as a meaning-making process. I do not intend to develop a systematic theory of design but to bring comprehension of the design process closer to that of semiotics, logical reasoning, and sen­sory perception. In particular, I look for links between semiotic modeling. methods of visualization, and sensory experience. I argue that designs are constructed in accordance with the representational paradigm of diagram­matic modeling, which reveals the diagrammatic aspect of conceptualiza­tions of spatial-temporal oriOltation in the world.

In the other words. J propose that all design works be regarded as dia­granunatic models of thought patterns. A3 such, they are representations of diagrammatic reasoning as it is described by C. S. Peirce. To illustrate the diagranunatic nature of modeling in design, I refer to examples from the print medium, such as poster and book cover designs.

PlfOTOGIUPHr. MUSIC, AND AIT I Kn.MIEACZAX '"

Subject of Design. or What Callnot be Accepted?

The vocabulary thai is commonly used in the domain of design reveals the presence of deep·seated problems with the design lexicon. Of COW'SC,

the development of the language and concepts that belong to it reveals the complexity and levels of conceptualization at which professionals are able to think of their own domain. So the problems are not located in the vocab· ulary itself, but in the advancement of the conceptual and heuristic strate· gies used to reflect upon one's own process and the object of tha! process at the meta level.

The cause of the trouble in design P11lctice is the underdevelopment of design theory, which notoriouslyreifies concepts.. Thus it is not uncommon fordesign practitioners to approach the "content" of their design operations as if it were a thing floating formlessly in the air, waiting for the designer 10 give it a perceivable form. So defined, content remains the same regard· less of its form. Multiple designs of one content are nothing but an expres· sion of the abundance of designer's creativity. Therefore, the designer is assigned the God-like function of the Great Incamator. Such a function im. plies that the content is separuted from the design process, but in such a manner that the content is static, as if a priori determined, and the designer only makes it perceptually accessible. Thus, the content as such is not af· feded by the changes in the design.

According to the International Institute ofInformation Design, the lead· ing associatiOl) forinformation design, information design is defined as "the defining. planning, and shaping of the contents of a message and the envi· ronments it is presented in with the intention of achieving particular ob· jectives in relation to the needs of uscrs" (Simlinger 1996: 4).11 is the pre· delennined "content of a message" that needs to be molded. Although it is taken for granted that the evaluation of the effectiveness of the design is de· termined bylhe pragmatic context of the design goals, such as the rhetorical impact of the design, the essential influence of the design on the meaning is still overlooked. The function of the term "design" is twofold. At times it is used as a verb, which defines a specific process or action; at other times it is used as a noun that describes the very outcome of the design practice. It is the context that defines which of the roles is at issue.

144 SEMIOTICS 2000

The common lack of a theoretical foundation in design and the lack of an appropriate operational, design-specific lexicon not only cause problem­atic misconceptions, but also forces the appropriation of lexicons from other domains. Different design theoreticians have attempted to develop a vocab­ulary enabling the thorough examinatioo of the design process. Thus Ed­ward TUfte, the major design theorist. expresses in ''The Visual Display of Quantitative Information", the generallyaccepled view that "graphics reveal data" (1983: 14), and thus he proposes that data is the core of graphic pre­sentation. Unfortunately, decontextualized terms., although redefined. still cart)' the baggage and the limitations of the theory from which they were

borrowed. For instance. the viewpoints of Tuftc, Tukey, Karsten, Bcrtin, and other statisticians show the utmost concern with the accuracy and cred­ibility of the data, but they have been criticized for their lack or the aware­ness of the distinction between the data and informa�on. which is "what the graphics is doing or saying" (Storkerson 1996). Since lexical borrowing oc­curs, why not borrow from semiotics? "All communication is semiotic by force of being constituted and regulated by systems of signs" (Lanigan 1988: 176). Contrary to the most common approaches to design, which do not recognize the semiotic aspec:t of design in terms of its primary constitu­ent, that is, the reasoning, I share the viewpoint of many other semioticians that "the whole of human experience, without exception, is an interpretive structure mediated and sustained by signs" (Deely 1986: 57). Consequently, given the semiotics of an interpretive flow, 1 propose to modify the notioo of design, changing it into a meaning-making process, or the design of meaning. "Meaning", in the most general tenns, is conceived here as a thought originated by the contact with a sign.

Object 0/ Design. or What Has To Be Accepted

Design objects are constructed in the same way as objects are defined or categorized in life. Objects are defined not for what they are in and for themselves, but for what they arc to us (humans). As such they are diagrams of human expectations, on the one hand, and their impact on them, on the other. Granted, they are interconnected with the whole network of function­ality of other objects. According to Hanson, whose non-picture thcory is in

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PHOTOGfUPHY, MIJ$IC, AHDAlTl iG4ZMfEACZAK 145

correspondence to Gestalt theory, "Seeing an object x is to see that it may behave in "the ways we know x's do behave: if the object's behavior does not accord with what we expect ofx's we may be blocked from seeing it as

a straight forwardx any longer" (1958: 22). Correspondingly, in Peirce's words as expressed in the "pragmatiemax­

im" with Gestalt overtones, meaning is embedded in the praxis of experi­ence: "Consider what effects. that might conceivably have practical bear­ings, we conceive the object of our perception to have. Then our conception of these effects is the whole of our conception of thc object" (CP 5.402). In other words, "an object of thought -sign is not its 'real' denotatum, but what the community decides to take the object to be" (Merrell 1991: 248). Thus, we as humans have to accept the fact that when we refer to an object, we are not really referring to the object as such, but to our conceptualizations about that object.

Beside the pragmatic dimension of the object of perception, there is an existential one as well, which influences the way we perceive objects. "An existential position can yield only a particular point of view in space-time, revealing only certain aspects of things and leaving others concealed" (Saint-Martin 1987: Ill). Thisimpiiesthatconceptualizationsand theirma­ttrializations in fonn of designs are never holistic but always selective. As sueh they constitute diagrammatic modeling, which is not only iconic, but also represents structural relations, Consequently, visual representation of an object does not represent the object as it is in and for itself as a whole, but signifies a selection of our conceptualizations about that object or our knowledge of the object As a maHer of fact, in the realm of design, dia­grammatic representation of an object is even more discriminatory in re­spect to its original conception. From the totality of the community's con­ceptualizations about something, it has to eliminate all of those characteris­tics that are irrelevant to the intended design goal. Thus, depending on the design objective, the designer strategically chooses to bring into the pictor­ial plane (page) only those aspects of the object that are essential to the de­sign objective under planar restrictions and technical requirements or limitations.

For instance, in the book cover design (Figures I and 2), the conceptu­alizations about the racial distinction between white and black women were reduced to the representation of two facial profiles of opposite colors. In or-

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der to provide enough space between them to accommodate the placement of the title of the book (Figure 1) the designer strategically shows only as

much of the profiles ns absolutely necessary for their recognition, while allowing maximum space between them. The options of the book size were

restricted to one small format used by the publisher. In regard to printing limitatioos. the designer had to limit the number of colors to two and elim­inate any tonal differences IS well. Thus, the colors had to be flat to accom­modate line artdrawing. The designer's creative strategy to overcome some oflbe limitations was to bring another color into the design. It was achieved by exposing the whiteness of the paper on which the design was printed. It was achieved by exposing the whiteness of the paper on which the design was printed.

Figure 1. Elzbieta KAZMIERCZAK: KobietQ w Krainie Dixie (A Woman in the I.tlnd a/Dixie), front ofthc book cover, offset, 1999, 8� x S.SR.

To recapitulate, the design process entails the layering of representa­tional sequence or a semiotic flow of conceptualizations, which for a de­signer ends with the execution ora project. In respect to a viewer, that flow proceeds to another layer, thnt is,lo the viewer's development of the con­ceptualization about the design. In other words, the viewcr derives the meaning of the design object. Thus, the process implies hierarchical layer­ing of the selected characteristics of the object. As a result of thc design process, a taxonomy of the conceptualizations about the object is acquired in the form of a hierarchical diagram. The distinction between an object in

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PIIf7TOOMPHr, MUSfC, ANDAII.TI KAZMfUCUK 147

itselfand the conceptualizations about it implies that any conceptualization is created by someone. Although it might be disowned by the originator and turned into the collective effort of a community, it still was developed by one's mind engaged in actualized material process ..

Figure 2. Elzbieta KAZMIERCZAK: Kobieta w Krainie Dixie fA Woman in the Land o/Dixie), back of the book cover, offsel, 1999.8" :It S.s�.

Let me use an example from the book-publishing dOrJUlin to iIIust:rale that the concept about an object, such as a book's content, hns to be design­ed in order to become accessible to the community of readers. At the end of the chain of conceptualiZ3tions, there is a designer who adds his or her conceptualizations, becoming responsible for the meaning conveyed by his or her design. The scmiotic flow of conceptualizations highlights a dynamic aspc;:ct of the communication process: the sensitivity of the meaning to change, and its capacity to grow.

Process of Design

We think through thought-signs and arrangc them into a network of re lationships, and those interconnect

'ed thought-signs are icons of a specific

type. Thought-icons "pattern the qualia of Firstness into patterns of con­cepts" (Spinks 1991: 446). They are not yet actualized potentialities of con­cepts unless they come to exist in Secondness. They are mental schemas of

148 SEMIaT1CS 2000

our conceptualizations about things. Whether logical or material, the signs, which are always iconic1 are models created to represent conceptualizations of an object in relation to the system of thought-signs. Mental icons Conn patterns of relations among thought-signs. As such, they are diagrams or mental maps of our thinking. They are visualized in the Conn of graphic m" dels of our conceptualizations of objects. Depending on the degree of iconi­city, graphic models vary on the scale of degrees of diagrarrunatic schema­tization. Needless to say, that schematization varies depending on the de­sign purpose and the subject matter. They also. vary in regard to the taxon­omy of semiotic space in which they participate. For instance, geographic maps have a strong indexical tone (Spinks 2000). as they are designated by the correspondence between proximities of actual geographic locations and their graphic signifiers. Geographic maps are embedded more in Second­ness in relation to models representing scientific theories. which participate in Thirdness, "The more the iconic model participates in Thirdness, the more the model will seek to articulate the nature of law- be it natural,log • .

ical, or whatever" (Spinks 1991: 446). I argue that creative process in design originates from its function of

reproducing mental visual imagery rather than the production of pictures resembling perceived reality. By the same token, the creative design process is fueled not by the urge to copy the original, but by the urge and the need to make models. And the models are of our thought patterns and not of a reality as of an original. If one has to relate to the notion of an original, then it is an original thought about something, which is to be actualized in a

graphic medium. Thus, an original is a thought, which serves as a source of graphic representation. It is the correspondence between the thought pattern and its graphic representation that serves as a foundation for the diagram­matic models that undertake different fonns of expression, such as "pictor­ial, hieroglyphic, alphabetic, schematic, and ultimately algebraic" (Merrell 1991: 263).

As such, the design process is the process of graphic actualization of thought-diagrams that takes place on two planes: on a mental (design) plane of thought shaping and on the pictorial plane of its material counterpart. In other words, it brings to existence the menial diagram of oureonceptualiza-

I For thorough explanations of the iconie nature of mental representations of tho lights sc:e C. S. Peirce (CP 2.247; 2.281; 2.282; 2.314; 3.363; 4.448; 4.S44).

PHOrrx;�/>J{r. MUSIC, ANOA.tT/ K.tZMIE.tCZAK 149

J' lions about object, including the map of the world in general. These planes

�. constitute the two modes of the diagrammatic modeling of thought. They define the modes of semiosis, that is, the meaning-making process, :-vhich

,-is the cssence of the design process. Aecording to C. W. Spinks. a process

• ofportrayingeonceptual relations by spatial means "is 'mapping' in its hy­

r polhelical sense" (1991: 446). Correspondingly, the design process as I

:' view it is the mapping in its actual sense. In other words, it is a process of � representing conceptual relations by spatial means in a graphic medium. As

such, it is a process of visualizing diagrammatic models. Graphic (pictorial) models are one sensorial mode of actualization. The correspondence be· tween mental and pictorial diagrammatization, as mapping, is noticeable al· so in the construction of the pictorial plane. The pictorial plane of dcsign is confined by the two spatial coordinates of height and width; which eorre­spond to the mental coordinates of diagrammatic reasoning.

Understanding De--Sign. or Making Patterns and Relations

But what actually happens during the design process from the semiotic viewpoint? Why do I dare calling it de·sign? As "to sign" is defined as

making and placing of a sisn as well as representing or indicating by a sign, so its discreditation or degeneration by reduction and even negation is the process of designing. The very actualization of the design sets the bounda­ries of interpretation, The design process provides the limits to the wide range of interpretations determined by the initial thought·sign. The design process is digital in the sense that it is driven by dichotomy of chosen ver­sus rejected characteristics of an object. As was said during the discussion of the design object. the designer makes a commitment to fulfill the eoncep-­tual and functional design goals, and thus he or she must eliminate those characteristics of the object that do not support the goal. The design model as presented in a given, detennined. graphic fonn reduces the interpretive possibilities of a given thought at two levels: at the level of thought -design and at the level of its actualization, that is, of material and functional actual· illltion. Concept design, be it realistic, abstract, diagrammatic, or of any other mode of correspondence (representation), narrows'the range of inter·

ISO SEMIUT1CS 2000

pretive possibilities of a thought-pattern by assigning to it those, instead of the other, perceptual characteristics.

It is true, that to a large extent it is the function of design that deter­mines other design choices, but that still docs not contradict the fact that every medium has its unique range of usage. For instance, if the arrange­ment shown by Figure 3 was designed to function as a set design and not as a poster design, it would gain another dimension. It would become an arrangement of and in three-dimensional space. Instead, it is confined by the two coordinates of pictorial plane. As a three-dimensional arrangement. it would have its elements distributed also along the third coordinate of depth. Thus, its domain would shift from two-dimensional to three-dimensional. Ultimately, it would invite the viewer 10 multi-sensorial participation around and inside it, which would tum into a slaloming among flooting tear-drop spheres distributed in space. Thus, a model of greater complexity would be developed, as it would require perceiving it "across different sensory spatial lcvels" (Saint-Martin 1987: I 52). It also would contain a higher degree of surprise, as the viewer would engage in discovering the regions of the visual field that initially were hidden behind those that were made previously accessible.

Figure 3. Etzbieta KAZMIERCZAK: V(tw from the Edge, poster, mixed media on paper, 1999, 17M x II�.

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The de-signer. by defining a sensory pattern of thought perception, brings that thought to existence. In correspondence to the actualization of mental qualia of Firstness, he or she gives them material actuality, which also evokes the sense of finality. It is not uncommon for a designer to have the bittersweet sense orjoy mixed with disappointment. The joy comes with the completion of the projecL The disappointment not only comes with the human fallibility caused by the resistance of the material, which is always on the way toward desired outcome, it also comes with regretting that what has been accomplished might have been something else, perhaps so much more. As such, the design outcome is a sinsign in the uniqueness of its sin­gulariti. which is defined by its relation to the Rep��. :nus, the design is the de-signing as it eliminates from the potentially unhl11lted range of design solutions all of them but one, the actually executed one.

�uring the process of de-signing, a (potential) icon-to-be is refined by being elevated to a higher level of discrimination and diffcrentiation. As thought-design discriminates the features of the design object to those rele-: vant to the design goal, so bringing it into material form has to accom­modate not only the conceptual or rhetoric goals of the design, but also the requirements of a given medium. For instance, if the designs shown by Fim • ...-<; 1 2 and 3 were executed as oil paintings. it would be extremely .- - .. difficult to acquire the desired complete flatness of the gray tones. Of course it is a crude simplification of the contextual aspect of design and its strate�c complexity, but for the needs of a current argument it highlights the main premise enough for its functional explanation. . By giving shape to our experiences we make sense of them. Making sense of something means to understand what it conveys. Such a compre­hension is made possible by virtue of linking a new meaning with the old and familiar one. Thus, comprehension is an act of relating(comparing) the new meaning to a larger network of alrody understood ideas. By under­standing, we organize - consciously or not - mental icons into patterns of relations, which fonn mental maps of our thinking. According to Peirce,

1 The dimension or a sign in rclalion 10 ils rcpresentamtn is highly rclevanl lo Ihe de­sign process, but in this pre5el\talion, I lei it rcmain adi�sion yet I� be disc:u�. 1t is the

Peircean category or�quDlisigns", "sinsigns",1lld "leglsigns". To diSCUSS slgn� I� Ihe full spectrum ortheir triadic relations. they should also be viewed as reillted 10 their Inlerpre­tants: as rhemes., diccnlS, and arguments. Thus, according 10 Peirce, an individual diagram is a rbematie ieonie sinsign (NMi 1985: 45).

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interconnected patterns and relations show "the law of mind (which) is that feelings and ideas attach themselves in thought so as to form systems" (CP 7.467). The act of relating requires a decision as to where to place and how to link the new to the familiar. The process of linking implies connectivity and interconnectedness of the conceptualizations (CP 2.282). Conscious­ness by means of diagrammatic reasoning constructs abstracted schematic blueprints of objects. The primary focus of such a mental effort, whether embedded in the mind or actualized on paper, on the computer screen, or in any other mean of material comnllmication, ''rests on interconnectedness not things, pal/ems not essences" (Merrell 1991: 252).

The interconnectedness requires the internal translatability of signs in a flow of semiotic translations. That is not to say that the translatability and intcn:onnectedness of signs assures that a sign is identical with its substi­tute. It is to say that irene assumes that it is in thepaUerns of relations that we find the meaning, and not in signs for and in themselves, one has to ac­knowledge the diagrammatic nature of reasoning and its graphic actualiu­tions as well, since patterns and relations are assumed to be thc essence of diagrams (Pcirce CP 4.418).

On the one hand, diagrams may be examined as signs in and of them­selves that influence the meaning by the characteristics of the material form of a signifier (reprcsenlamen). On the other hand, they may bc examined as a mode of thinking embodied in materia1 process. Or they may be cxamined as both. Since "one must not identify the mechanisms of perception with· thosc of visunl representation" (Saint-Martin 1987: 152), I vicw them as the latter influencing the former in reiatiooship to the theory of perception.

I argue that the design process is the actualization of mental mapping in the diagrammatic sensc. Thus, it is the process of the development of the diagrammatic representations of mental models of thought-signs in respect to a given design objective. In other words, design process is a selection of those structural relations between thought patterns and their visual represen­tations which serve to fulfill the design objectives.

PHOTOGUI'HT, MUSIC. AND A IT I KAlMIUCZAK '"

Designs as Diagrams. or Shortcuts to Meaning

Diagrams and ultimately, the diagrammatic reasoning, as iconic signs representingslruclural relations (peirce CP 4.418) correspond to the design process. The design process is defined as an intellectual effort that "mani­fests itself in drawings or plans, including schemes and specifications" (Simlinger 1996: 4). As it was said earlier, that is a process, which requires selectiveness and abstractization of characteristics of the object of design.

In a so defined process of design, there is room for originality and crea­tivity, which are the sensitive points of the designer's consideration. Dia­grams "require a certain detachment of the representational sign from the primary artifact, which provides for a degree of arbitrariness" (Mmell 1991: 263). Thus, depending on thedegreeofarbitrnrincss, the designer can

exhibit more or less individualistic tendencies in hislhcr designs. In other words, designs provide not a holistic image of an object, but a

condensed synopsis of it with high degree of elision to emphasize the main premises of the design whatever they might be. As such, designs function as graphic shortcuts through and to the meaning. Diagrams, as applied to

the purposes of the development of spatial leaming strategies, have been recognized as tools facilitatingmeaningful leaming and memorabilityofthe materia1 (Holley and Dansereau 1984: 14). They do not provide lengthy de· scriptions or specifications of the object, like it is the case in linguistic ex­planations. Instead, they only provide pictoria1 cues necessary for the im· mediate grasping of an adequate interpretant. In other words, they provide an overview of rtlationships among corresponding relevant concepts. Thus, they provide schemata for comprehension of the subject matter. Conse­quently, diagrammatic modeling facilitatcs understanding and remembering of otherwise difficult to grasp conceptual structurcs.1t does so by providing spatia1 models of conceptual structures. As the overviews and the schemata, diagrams provide pictoria1 form by showing the complex conceptual struc­tures in a nut shell.

It is important to realize that the development of the diagrammatic mod­el to make it function successfully as a graphie shortcut requires that the de­signer employs strategic thinking and planning. It is frequently overlooked that the very selectiveness that leads to abstractization requires intellectual discipline and logical reasoning. Consequently, viev.ing design process as

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diagrammatic reasoning allows me to emphasize the importance of the log­ical foundations of that process. It is not onlytbe construction of the mean­ing by the designer that requires the use o(10glC, but also its re-construction by the viewer. The process of codification and de-codification is symmetri­cal, as the design lends itself to the viewer's participation in the meaning making process as he/she ''reads'' the diagram. That is acquired in such a way, that the viewer's navigation through the arrangement is determined by the visual hierarchy of that arrangement (picture). The viewer's reading of the diagram. due to the pictorial nature of the diagram, is always non-linear and associative. which makes itdifferent from the linguistic comprehension. Of course, the diagram is always to some extent open to different readings. but they are limited by the designer's strategy to make it "an intentional Of­ganization of its field of possibilities" (Eco 1962: 100).

All t)pes of what are usually considered as diagrams, at the pictorial level of graphic actualization, have a blend of pictorial and linguistic ele­ments. Although I am using examples of designs consisting of both linguis­tic and pictorial elements, the distinction between linguistic and pictorial components of graphic diagrams is not of significance at the top level of the diagranunatic reasoning. It overcomes it, since both are constituted by the thought-signs. Nonetheless, at the bottom level of graphic manifestation, it is usually addressed, as it provides an interesting cognitive tension between different types of leaming as it was just demonstrated in the discussion on diagrams as tools for spatial leaming strategies. Pictorial elements, especial­ly those with a high degree of generalization, require linguistic support to gain a context to allocate the meaning of the otherwise abstract and arbitrary formation of shapes with shifting differentiation values. Points, lines, an­gles, and open and closed figures may signify anything, since there are many ways to represent a given conceptual structure. In such a context, the linguistic discourse, as a highly standardized and common means of com­munication, conveniently helps to determine the meanings of pictorial ele­ments (see Turkovic 1995: 335). The dynamic relation of mutual determina­tion between the syntactic rules for assembling points, lines, and figures and their linguistic discourse determines their reading. For instance, the range of possible meanings of an arrangement with an arrow is narrowed down to those situations in which the syntax of an arrow is applicable. In short, an arrow always contains information about (a) the relational nature of a situa-

PH(JTQ(;IW'HY, MUSIC, ANDAATI K.A2M/ERCZAK

lion, (b) its motion, and (c) its direction. It can be claimed that, the language

of diagrams is universal but only to the degree of the cultural similarity of

and exposure to (a) the process ofform differentiation, (b) .geometric code,

and (c) language acquisition. The diagrammatic architecture of the page is shown by Figure 1. The

icon of a whole female was reduced to a partial representation of the faces

during the design process. This synecdochical substitutioo of a part for a

whole conveys almost intimate closeness of there lations hip. As such, itrep­

resents all that was needed to convey the dichotomy between the two oppo­

site elements. In other words, the designer has developed a schematic pic­

ture of the face, to provide a diagrammatic model of the female-to-female

relationship. As a matter of fact, there is also an overtone of possible reading that the two profiles might be male ones as well. That does not im­

pair the design, to the contrary, it supports it, as a male counterpart also

plays a role in the text of the book. Thus, the front cover shows the two wo­

men, reduced to the visual representation of significant parts of schematic

profiles. On the other hand, the differences in the mutual placement of the

profiles indicates the quality of their relationship. For instance, on the front

cover (Figwe I), the two profiles are in opposition, perhaps, even in con·

frontational opposition, while on the back cover (Figure 2), they are placed

right next 10 each other. The change of placcment from polarized and adver­

sarial to the same side of the composition, is geared toward inducing the

response in the viewer. He or she is to infer that the significant change of

the relationship between heroines has occurred during the course of the

book.

Diagrams and Sensory Perception .

In sensory perception pattern recognition is fundamental to the devel­opmentof meaning. It is pattems that we learn through our experiencing of ourselves in the material world. We instantaneously recognize thesepattems that have already been included in our conceptual maps as intelligible. In phenomenology some of those patterns are recognized as intuited (we grasp their meaning instantaneously, pre-logically). Other patterns_require a con­ceptual effort to comprehend them.

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Gestalt psychology of visual perception traditionally is considered as the foundation of design. The empirical nature of the design process as re· quiring sensory instrumentation requires 1 inking to the theory of perception. According to Paul Bouissac, "any theory of the sign, including design theo­ry, explicitly or not, can only be linked to a theory of perception" (1984: 8). The main premise of gestalt psychology is that humans have a natural ten­dency to organize random lines, shapes, or colors into recognizable, and thus, intelligible, visual patterns (Hanson 1965: 13). "Perceptual pattern recognition at once gives significance to elements perceived ... so also con­ceptual pattern "recognition gives significance to the empirical elements within a theory" (Merrell 1991: 262). At the most basic level, gestalt is founded on the concept of the whole being much greater than. and thus qualitatively different from the mere sum of its elements (Berryman 1973: 8).

The experiential grounding of the pictorial code is present in our re­sponses to the placement and orientation of elements in graphic diagrams. Those diagrams that represent our orientation in space constitute graphic maps. Their significance is revealed not only through the linguistic meta­phors by which we describe pictorial elements, but also in our behavioral responses to them. Thus, the placement orientation, scale, and so forth of an

object (element) induces a certain interpretation. For instance, a vertical line is linked with motion in directions up and down. The upward movement is considered as a positive and optimistic motion, in opposition to moving down; the former is linked with organic growth and advancement, the latter with organic decay and decline. A horizontal line is referred to as the ground, due to our experience of walking. As such, ·it is perceived as less dynamic than the vertical line. It appears that graphic diagrams are compre­hended faster if the change of domains between a signifier and a signified does not take place. If the diagram, which by its nature represents concep­tual relations by spatial means, deals with the objects functioning in the do­main of spatial relations, it is comprehended faster than the diagrams repre­senting objects defined within other than spatio-temporal domain.

Existential relations determine also the degree of perceptual directness of a diagrammatic signification. For instance, if I know - based on my experience of gravity-that inanimate objects do not fly but fall down due to gravity, I immediately assume that an object visually represented as

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freely floating is on its way down. In Figure 3, icons in the shape of tear­drops are placed unsupported to make a straightforward indication of their moving down. Correspondingly, the design may induce in the viewer the sense of emotional comfort or discomfort. In Figure 4, the lion is designed to challenge our sense of scale and balance, by its very placement on the tiny pyramid o f l etters supported, or I should rather say, unsupported by the wheel that rotates to the right:

Figure 4. Hubert HILSCHER: Cyrk (Circus). poster, offset, 1967, 36" x 24M, private collection, printed with the owner's pennission.

How do I know that the wheel is indicating motion to the right? It is its arched to the right spikes that do the trick. If they were coming straight­forward from the center, they would indicate radiation. Ifit were not for my previous experience with imbalanced objects, I would not know why the dcsigncr has placed the lion at the top of an upsidc down pyramid, and he would not trigger the sense of discomfort that comes with it. As the Polish title "cyrk" (Eng. "circus") indicates the context, I gather why the lion is po­sitioned in this particular way.

Correspondingly, in the domain of research on text processing in artifi­cial intelligence, it is claimed that "the nature of the external stimuli influ­ences the type of processing" that is due to the limited capacity of the central (syntactic) processor (Holley & Dansereau 1984: 7). It is demon-

ISS

straled that familiar narrative prose is usually processed top-down and un­familiar non-narrative prose is usually processed bonom-up. In gestalt psy­

chology,we find that patterns that are familiar to us areprocessed toJH1own. and those that are unfnmiliar are processed bottom-up. Diagrammatic mod­

els as schemas of objects (- our conceptualizations of objects) provide an overall (top-level) view of things. In this respect, the role oCa designer is to "facilitate the bottom-up extraction o(top level schemata" (Holley & Dan­sereau J 984: 7), that is. graphic diagrams.

Conclusion

My underlying intent is to query the principles of design as logical and

cognitive strategies, which empower cognition of semiotic intelligibility as

opposed to the notion of design as intuitiw. I oppose the common view­

point that design is a function of arbitrary and subjective decisions derived

solely from aesthetic preferences. I do conceive the design process as

founded on an experiential-cognitive foundation and reasoning. I view the

propagation of this viewpoint as beneficial for an intelligible design cur·

riculum.

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