Meaning and semiotics

Member lesson

Ambiguity and double meaning

Lesson 9 of 9 in Meaning and semiotics.

Negative Space in Logo Design: A Quick Course for Beginners · Arek Dvornechuck
Lesson

The Rubin vase en.wikipedia.org, made around 1915 by the Danish psychologist Edgar Rubin for his doctoral thesis, is a shape that reads as a vase or as two facing profiles depending on which part of it you take as the object. It is the standard demonstration of figure and ground en.wikipedia.org. The detail everyone forgets is that only one reading is available at any moment. Multistable perception en.wikipedia.org is the general name for the effect, and the flips between readings are spontaneous and unpredictable, which means you cannot schedule them.

the thingyou are sellingthe thingeveryone knowsone shared property, and only onewiden the overlap and the metaphor stops meaning anything
Two unrelated domains joined by one shared property, which is the whole metaphor.
A two-page spread from Bodoni's specimen book. The left page is the title page, MANUALE TIPOGRAFICO set in widely spaced capitals inside a double rule. The right page, numbered 244, shows the capitals A to L at enormous size in a serif with hairline-thin horizontals and heavy vertical stems.
A spread from Bodoni's 1818 type specimen book, with giant capitals whose thin strokes are almost hairlines. That extreme thick and thin became a style of its own.Manuale Tipografico, specimen page. Giambattista Bodoni, published posthumously by Margherita Dall'Aglio, Parma, 1818.Wikimedia Commons/Public domain
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  1. Question 1, locked

    When is ambiguity a strength in a mark?

    • When both readings are true about the brand
    • When most people miss the second reading
    • When it makes the mark harder to copy
  2. Question 2, locked

    Which of these words means this? “When one image supports two readings and the mind swaps between them at unpredictable intervals.”

    • Replacement
    • Multistable perception
    • Juxtaposition
    • Visual rhetoric
  3. Question 3, locked

    Which of these words means this? “Whatever a stranger sees in the first second. In practice this is your design, whatever else you built.”

    • Code
    • Connotation
    • First reading
    • Denotation
End of Meaning and semioticsMembers onlyNow play it5 games from this module at four levels, and a stamp for your ticket book.

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