Output details

Marks, Signs and Images

The research purpose investigates the emergence of the primitive mark, how these visual identities evolve to form information systems, progressing to complex visual languages that interact with contemporary socio-political/commercial contexts.

The enquiry’s rigour/originality draws upon the ‘Design-Practitioner’s Perspective’ of semiotics and visual language within the context of a rapidly evolving global-information-society, that is becoming increasingly visually literate, supported by new agents of communication. The PI explores the impact this has on consumerism and how the individual, through greater visual awareness, is asserting increased leverage. The significance of this provides insights into how selected large-corporates are adapting by ‘democratising’ their all-important visual-identities in a bid to innovate/win markets within a context of heightened consumer visual literacy.

The PI has brought together this enquiry through his introduction to Logo Design 3, Taschen 2010; positioning these notions alongside contemporary examples of corporate identity programmes. The themes are extended further through the PI’s paper at the International Conference on Semiotics and Visual Communications. The PI contributed to the organisation of the conference, selection of papers and chairing of workshops and discussion groups. The conference proceedings, to be published by Cambridge University Press, provides a significant contribution to the field.

The research question progresses to address the contemporary expansion of global visual communication by specifically exploring a case study which captures an ex-communist regime as it moves to a capitalist system. The investigation explores how the indigenous visual language is being assimilated by Western consumerism, providing a narrative that documents a unique moment in time. This stage of the research is articulated through an exhibition, public lecture and workshop/colloquium in Tirana that tests, hypothesises/disseminates/interacts and captures an emerging discourse through an authored book and photographic essay. The outputs are grouped because each ‘breath out and in’ forming the emerging discourse through the dissemination/gathering of information.