"Sign - Something that communicates a message
Signifier - Something that gives meaning
Signified - Denotation - A literal understanding of the message
- Connotation - A cultural understanding of the message
By recycling and re-using signifiers we understand what things mean and stand for automatically through their connotations. When something has lots of connotations the sign can turn into a signifier, this is called a Myth.
Signs
Icon - Resembles what the sign is referring too from the perspective of the drawer
Index - A sign that infers a relationship to something else
Symbol - A sign is obviously and literally standing for something else."
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This piece of design has been created by a Spanish illustrator named Baimu (http://www.behance.net/gallery/Sacred-spirit/5165617)
He gives a description of his work:
"In this case I wanted to merge the world of Native American spiritual and mystical legends, with a polygonal aesthetics, more typical of the early 90's and 3D video games. For the head I used a font itself, called Roundone."
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The initial sketch of Baimu's illustration is clearly a very rough sketch, but it is evident how he has developed the sketch further into his final creation.
The star of David located above the character's head is a sign, which is recognised all over the world and has very strong connotations to Judaism. I am unsure why the artist has used this symbol in his piece as the implications from this sign are associated with religion and bare no relevance to his illustration.
The artist has stated that this piece is based on "the world of Native American spiritual and mystical legends", but despite that, the deceased animal's skull with the horns has always denoted to me the idea of Native America, and the ancestry associated with it. The animal skull working in conjunction with the rest of the character's face acts as an index due to the images connecting to Native American legend
The disposition of the American character looking down the mountainous landscape is rather emotive, and signifies to me power, and authority over the Chieftain's lands, this is an index sign as it represents the man's relationship to the setting.
The use of the Roundone font in this piece relates to how the artist claims this design relates to 'mystical legends', the font is very fitting for this piece and denotes to me levels of majesticness but in the aspect, the font has connotations which relate to the Americas. In this form, the font wouldn't be fitting to represent any other culture, which makes it a connotation.
