A Semiotic Rosetta Stone Research Project. Defining designer-centric semiotic practice

Abstract

This research project will provide a richer understanding of how a designer-centric reframing of Peirce’s semiotic theory could manifest itself. We propose to run it throughout the length of the conference with EAD’s design delegates opting in through informed consent. It will pragmatically construct a body of sensory data from a semiotic probe (a variation of a cultural probe) that participants will complete in their own time. We would like this probe to be distributed in the EAD conference goody bag at conference registration. It will feature several practical visual tasks, plus a semiotic audit section, and it would be collected during the conference. From the semiotic probe data we aim to discover how Peirce’s complex terminology could be translated into a designer-centric metalanguage. Like the historical Rosetta Stone, this data would then help designers and theoreticians to improve the communicational situation in disseminating Peircean semiotic theory.