When the Finnish design semiotician Susann Vihma visited Copenhagen in the beginning of February, she pointed out the importance of understanding and analysing design as a medium for the articulation and construction of meaning. The Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan’s 1964 slogan, “The medium is the message”, indicating that a message should always be understood through the medium that carries it, might be rephrased in Susann Vihma’s words: “The design product is the message” – indicating that design is a medium that communicates messages through form and expression.

By Mads Nygaard Folkmann

That design always has a message was one of the unequivocal points of Susann Vihma’s guest lectures at the DCDR’s Master of Design programme and The Danish Design School. Susann Vihma is a professor at the University of Art and Design Helsinki, UIAH.

Susann Vihma has a background as an industrial designer, but for years now she has been addressing design theoretically and through research. She has specialised in design semiotics, beginning with her Ph.D. dissertation from 1995, Products as Representations. A Semiotic and Aesthetic Study of Design Products. Susann Vihma was one of the first to introduce, discuss and specify a design-specific branch of semiotics. In 2003 she published an introduction to design history in Swedish.

Semiotics (or semiology, as it is also known) means the ‘study of signs’. A Danish dictionary defines semiotics as a “scientific discipline addressing the meanings and functions of manmade (cultural) signs, e.g. words, rituals or symbols.”
Semiotics may be seen as a process of abstraction, where concrete objects are viewed as signs that are capable of producing meaning when placed in combinations and constellations.

Figure 1

This perspective may offer a more profound understanding of the finer mechanisms involved in the generation of meaning and messages. More specifically, the purpose of semiotics is not so much to analyse what the meaning is as to determine how meaning occurs and is created. And this how may provide a much more profound understanding of the what that essentially constitutes meaning.

Susann Vihma’s overarching point is that any design product can be seen as the reflection of the creation of meaning – in her terminology, meaning construction and signification – and that this meaning construction is open to analysis and can thus be captured with semiotic instruments. This points to two components that are in mutual interaction: a particular design understanding and the articulation of a semiotic analytical method.

Design Always Carries a Meaning
Susann Vihma’s first step is to outline a design understanding where the design product consists of several different dimensions: The product has a sort of primary basis in factors such as knowledge of materials, knowledge of construction principles, and embeddedness in a usage situation, but that is not enough. One more dimension is crucial for the ability to grasp what a product is: the semantic dimension (Figure 1). The semantic dimension refers to the product’s meaning content, i.e. the message that a product expresses, or that which the product refers to in a representation. The overall framework surrounding the product and its dimensions consists of the specific context that the product is always a part of – and in turn affects – and which one must relate to (Figure 2).

Susann Vihma emphasises that one must always ask what context a particular product belongs to, and how this context affects the product and its representation and meaning construction. Then, in Susann Vihma’s analysis, from the combination of the four product dimensions and the product context, a fifth dimension emerges: the overall aesthetic appreciation of the product (Figure 3).

Figure 2

The key point here is to emphasise that design products always contain meaning, which is expressed through the given product and within the framework that it is embedded in. This perspective of design may, on the one hand, be used as a basis for a very precise understanding of design products and their interactions with the context that they are placed in, and on the other hand it can also be used actively in a design process. Susann Vihma’s point is that the awareness of meaning in design is not only useful as an analytical approach but also an asset in the design process.

In her lecture, she mentioned a number of research projects at UIAH where one of the issues is how to incorporate important messages into products; for example in the design of a Volvo or in the way in which an exhibition architect is able to affect the perception of an exhibition through the exhibition design.
As Susann Vihma said in her lecture at the master’s programme: “It is through the qualities in design that relate to representation that the core competencies of design are demonstrated.”

Semiotics Traditions
Susann Vihma mentioned that there are, roughly speaking, two traditions in the field of semiotics, both of which use the term ‘sign’ but in different ways. One tradition is based on the work of the Swiss linguist Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913), who in his Cours de Linguistique Générale (published posthumously in 1916) defines semiotics as a part of linguistics. This point has subsequently been a key source of inspiration for the structuralist environments in France since the 1960s.

The second tradition stems from the work of the American philosopher Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914), whose notion of the sign was more general. To Peirce, a sign was not primarily linguistic but rather a general term for an interpretative relation, where something (a sign) signifies something (an object), which is interpreted by someone (an interpretant), who is thus him/herself part of a sign relation. Susann Vihma’s own preference is for Peirce’s semiotics, which is discussed in depth in her Ph.D. dissertation. 

Figure 3

Design Semiotics!
The next step is to devise a method for analysing the way in which meaning is constructed, and this is where Susann Vihma plays her trump card and offers her unique contribution: design semiotics. One may state that a product always holds a message, but Susann Vihma’s emphasises that this statement must be understood in a concrete sense in the analysis of product design.

This transition from general semiotics to a specialised branch of semiotics aimed specifically at design is one of the major challenges for design semiotics. Vihma points out that one should question the essential way in which design even appears as a sign. Her specific proposal is to define design semiotics as an instrument for asking questions about the semantic dimension of design. To her, design semiotics revolves around three factors, ranging from the way in which product form carries meaning and communication to the overall message:

• The way in which form constructs meaning
• The expression and communication of form
• The content of the message

She relates this to a range of factors that design semiotics should address in studying the semantic dimension of products:

Design semiotics should be an instrument for investigating the semantic dimension of design, says Susann Vihma, professor at University of Art and Design Helsinki.

• How does the product construct meaning; for example, how are form and colour applied? How is its function expressed? This may, for example, be seen in relation to the technical facilitation of function, knowledge of user-friendliness or the product’s emphasis on mainly emotional qualities.
• How does the product’s form communicate: What is its physical expression, its style, its particular characteristics? How does it interact with the user?
• What is the product’s overall representation? That is to say, what does it represent? How do the product’s message and representation determine a particular interpretation? And what is the context or environment of this relation?

The Perspective of Interpretation
A key point in relation to the interpretation of a representation is that we always perform our interpretations from a particular perspective or point of view. Thus, Susann Vihma proposed a general approach in relation to product analysis of not only systematically gathering data on product usage and history but also analysing the various points of view involved in the construction of the product and its meaning. She outlines a number of questions for applied design semiotics, where the overall question is how messages can be represented, articulated and communicated:

• What is being communicated?
• What is the designer’s message?
• What message does the product carry?
• What does the manufacturer wish to express through the product?
• Who is the message addressed to?
• In what context does the message appear?

The key point is that design analysis not only sets in once a given product is in the market, but that it can also be meaningfully applied at an early stage of the design process: Design semiotics can be used – also by designers – as a tool for heightening awareness of the messages the designer wishes to express and the context of this expressive act.

References: Vihma, Susann: Products as Representations: A Semiotic and Aesthetic Study of Design Products. University of Art and Design Helsinki, 1995. Vihma, Susann: Designhistoria – en introduktion. Raster Förlag, 2003. Additional information about UIAH, University of Art and Design Helsinki is available at www.uiah.fi.

Illustrations: Susann Vihma

 

Mind Design #7, 2008