SIMPLIFY

COMMUNICATING WAYS TO SIMPLIFY LIFE

THROUGH THE SCIENCE OF SEMIOTICS

My audience would be anyone that has the potential to fall for society's ideas about
debt and materialism. To work just to pay for what they don't need instead of enjoying
what's important. For those who are already in mortgages and huge car payments
that want to begin the process of scaling back, to people who have not yet gotten into
these situations. We can begin to live more simply and not in excess. We can make
room for whats really important.

AREAS

HOUSE
VEHICLE
DEBT
STUFF

So one of the first areas that this includes is our houses. The size and amount of
energy we consume. Not paying for the square footage and the cost to heat and cool
some of that square footage that you are not even using half the time would be a way
of simplifying.

FROM MODEST
TO MCMANSION
THE AVERAGE SQUARE
FOOTAGE OF A NEW
SINGLE- FAMILY HOME

SOURCE: THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HOME BUILDERS

AREAS

HOUSE
VEHICLE
DEBT
STUFF

Vehicle - Downsize and reduce the cost and energy consumption.

AREAS

HOUSE
VEHICLE
DEBT
STUFF

Debt - Pay down and eliminate credit cards and loans. College students get multiple
offers from credit card companies.

AREAS

HOUSE
VEHICLE
DEBT
STUFF

And our stuff. We always need more. We need the big house to stuff it all in.

PART A: FINDING SIGNS

The first part of this process is to find signs, how do we communicate these ideas and
concepts visually?

Here is my matrix I worked with. The main areas are highlighted with the sub
categories.

TOPIC: DOWNSIZING (SIMPLIFY)

Concept 1: House - house icon, roof index
Concept 2: Car - car icon, wheel index
Concept 3: Debt - money stack icon, mortgage symbol
Concept 4: Possessions - clothes index, stuff symbol
Concept 5: Clutter - pile of papers icon, trash can index
Concept 6: Well Being - red cross symbol, head index

From this process I narrowed it down to six concepts with two connotations each.

CONNOTATION vs DENOTATION
downsizing or value reduction?

Speaking of connotation vs denotation there was an interesting example of this during

my first presentation. The denotation I intended when I drew the house with the arrow
pointing down was meant to convey downsizing while someone else had a different
connotation, based on their experience, to take it to mean the dropping of a houses
value.

THREE REFINED
IMAGES

Here are my three refined images.

THREE REFINED
IMAGES
house - icon

The house would be an icon because it is a fairly realistic depiction of a house, or at

least for people who live in the types of house we are accustomed to seeing.

THREE REFINED
IMAGES
house - icon
mental
health symbol

The mental health head would be a symbol because it would have to be explained in
order to be understood. The clear brain depicted in the head could be considered an
index but for the most part this is a symbol.

THREE REFINED
IMAGES
house - icon
mental
health symbol
debt symbol
The word debt is definitely a symbol because it is a word that need to be learned.

PART B: MAKING MEANING

Here are my three signs with the connotations of clean and simplify. Here you can
see I changed the house sign to communicate the downsizing aspect. I abandoned
the debt word and went for another type of symbol without words. The mental health
symbol might be the most confusing to some. All my signs now are classified as
symbols because they would all require some type of learned knowledge to
understand them.

Here are the signs with the connotations of independent, which I wanted to possibly
be a graffiti style like Banksy, and I even attempted retro which in this case I was
going for 1950s the cartoon feel.

These were my final signs. I went with the cleaner version of the debt symbol and
removed the circle in the center of the bright spot in the head.

My mockups.

Here are my examples of the usage of anchorage and relay. Anchorage - Directs
the reader and helps them to interpret signifiers. Relay - Supplies meaning not found
in images and it works in a complementary way to the image. The tinyhouse and
debt signs would be an example of anchorage. It is literally what it is. Relay would be
the simplify or mortgage prison signs. It adds to the image .

These are my final signs for the stickers. They are all examples of relay. This is
where I really started to define, I feel, the mental health sign. Instead of thinking of it
like that I think of it as representing life.

The ability to be creatively alive in our daily life.

Having the freedom to focus on what is important and at the same time being
innovative and figuring out new ways to do more with less. To become more self
reliant.

Here are two of my relay stickers. With the debt symbol it is round but I liked the not
so polished look of it on the rectangle.

I also think they could work as a decal that has a transparent background.

PART C: DEFINING SEMIOTICS

semiotics - The study of signs which is important to graphic design.

semantics - The way we create meaning.
pragmatics - The relation of signs and the effects they have on people based on the
function and context of use.

sign - The result of how the signified and the signifier relate.
signified - The concept that is represented by the signifier.
signifier - Any physical thing that signifies.

icon - A realistic representation of something.

index - And indicator, part of a whole.
symbol - A learned code.
paradigm - Things that produce mutually exclusive choices.
syntagm - Where order is crucial to meaning.

connotation - The secondary definition based on the viewer's past experiences.

denotation - The primary definition, primary meaning, of a sign.
anchor - An image or object that fixes meaning.
relay - Meaning not found in images working in a complementary way.

What I learned about semiotics and its application to graphic design?

Learning the different parts a sign has, its signifier and the signified, helps to make the
message of a piece clearer. Learning what an index, icon and symbol are has helped me to
think of new ways to present design. Understanding the differences in connotation and
denotation has been valuable. It has made me realize the importance of hearing feedback
from others who might get a different connotation than I intended.
This knowledge will help me develop clearer, and more interesting design works that will help
me reach the target audience and possibly influence their decision making process.

SOURCES
http://zenhabits.net/simpleliving-manifesto-72-ideas-tosimplify-your-life/
tinyhouseblog.com/
money.cnn.
com/2013/12/17/pf/collegecredit-cards/

www.npr.
org/templates/story/story.
php?storyId=5525283