Semiotics of Product Design
Funded by the Academic Works Publishing Fund of Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts
Author: Zhang Jian Editor: Shao Shuiyi
Publication: Shanghai People's Fine Arts Publishing House, 1st edition, June 2024
Format: 787X1092 1/16 35.5 sheets Color printing
Word count: 510,000 words 565 pages
Price: 198.00 yuan
Introduction
This book focuses on structuralist product design, aims at the effective transmission of product text meaning, and constructs a comprehensive and systematic analysis of product design activities by semiotics and cognitive theories according to the product text transmission process of "designer-product text-user group" as the research framework and compilation order of the whole book.
The book discusses three main aspects:
1. Semiotic foundation construction of product design
Saussure's linguistic semiotics and Peirce's logic-rhetorical semiotics pragmatic instrumentalization, which is the basis for the semiotic theory of product design; The construction of a product design system based on group culture protocols; This is a discussion of the "cognitive language" of the product from the perception, experience, and symbolic perception between the user and the product.
2. The designer writes the text
the classification of product figures of speech and the textual compilation of various figures of speech; Through the "shaking" transformation of rhetorical symbols, the designer achieves a sequential and gradual transformation relationship between figures of speech. Symbolic analysis of the typical structuralist unconscious design system approach; The process by which the intuitive imagery that is the inspiration of the designer is rationalized through "consciousness".
3. The user interprets the text
Three ways for users to interpret the product text; The way in which product texts are interpreted and evaluated by different groups of people and in different ways in different social and cultural environments, and the multi-level intersubjectivity formed; The theory of "pre-text" and "intertextuality" in the accompanying text systematically discusses the problem of "similarity" in product design activities.
postscript
The perceptual expression of product design has always been the main direction of my design teaching and practice, and it can be said to be the only direction. From graduating from Wuxi University of Light Industry (now Jiangnan University) in 1995 to teaching at Nanjing University of the Arts, and then teaching at Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts at the end of 2009, this direction of research and practice has not been abandoned or interrupted.
In recent years, I have encountered the problem of the ideographic validity of designer texts, which has prompted me to use the theory of semiotics to analyze them. During the four-year doctoral study period from 2017 to 2021, I collected a large number of literatures, recorded a large number of notes, and drew various schematic models in the process of studying and combing the semiotic system. However, less than a quarter of these contents were used in the published doctoral dissertation "Symbolic Research on the Systematic Method of Unconscious Design", after all, the discussion of the systematic approach to unconscious design only touches on the question of the ideographic validity of structuralist texts in the semiotic research system. I thought that it would be easier to compile the "three-quarters" of the research and thinking content that was not used in the doctoral dissertation into a book from the summer vacation after graduating from the doctoral dissertation, but in the process of building the chapter framework of this book, I found that those contents were not enough to build a more complete and satisfactory product semiotic system. This forced me to return to the state of reading and learning, and strive to return the combination of semiotics and product design to the top level of user cognition.
"Semiotics of Product Design" is not simply about the transformation of semiotics in product design activities as the purpose of research, but in the structuralist product design as the center, based on the user's cognitive mode, and the effective transmission of the meaning of the product text for the purpose of systematic construction. In the process of constructing the system of "product design semiotics" of structuralism, more questions are discussed on the construction of the product design system in the process of "designer-product text-user" text transmission, the source of product cognitive language, the compilation of structuralist product texts and various rhetorical structure issues, the interpretation of product texts and the influence of cultural environment on interpretation. Therefore, the book was originally titled "General Theory of Semiotics of Product Design", and the word "General Theory" was deleted at the suggestion of editor Shao Shuiyi, so as not to appear too academic and scare away many readers and affect the sales of the book.
We cannot deny this, the design work is the concrete expression of the designer's reliance on abstract thinking, and the design practice is completed under the guidance of the designer's "thinking", and the "superiority" of the designer's thinking determines the "merits" of his works. In the undergraduate and even graduate teaching of design schools, the training method of "thinking first" is far more important than the cultivation of methods and skills.
Design theory can allow us to construct a certain design activity system framework or structural system in our minds from the thinking level, and this thinking level system or system, on the one hand, can effectively and systematically classify the design methods and design experience that we are proficient in. On the other hand, we can use the physical principles of building systems and systems to conduct in-depth and thorough analysis of the original design methods and practical experience, so as to achieve a clear situation that we often say "know what it is, and why it is so", and this clear situation is that we re-examine the essential characteristics and ways of connecting the biological and cultural attributes of users as "people" from the perspective of cognition and symbols. Although it is impossible for design theory to directly produce or derive innovative design methods, design practice under the guidance of design theory as a thinking tool will bring many possibilities for the innovation of design methods.
As an applied discipline, it is difficult for product design to form a system theory, and the exploration and development of its system theory almost all rely on the in-depth analysis of its methods and experience by many basic theories of other external disciplines. This also shows that the research of design theory must rely on the common support of the basic theories of other disciplines in order to obtain in-depth discussion.
Therefore, it is extremely necessary to study and sort out the basic theories of other disciplines in a complete and systematic manner, which also brings the problem that a certain "threshold" is required for learning and discussing "product design semiotics". It can be said that any idea that wants to improve the "quality" of thinking through theoretical learning must have a "threshold" for reading, and the level of the threshold determines the depth of the inquiry question, which is why I set up a series of courses on "Principles of Product Design Perception" in my undergraduate program at Guangmei Institute of Industrial Design.
Of course, many academic experts in the theoretical field will express the profound knowledge of science in a "simple way" in their lectures. Before writing this book, some students and friends wanted me to write an easy-to-read and easy-to-understand textbook on product design semiotics, which was difficult for me. I have studied semiotics and combined it with product design activities in the last five or six years, and there are two ways to write this book "Semiotics of Product Design": one is to conduct in-depth and thorough analysis and discussion of product design activities in accordance with the theory of semiotic systems; Second, in order to facilitate students' reading, they should express it in a simple and straightforward way with their current level of semiotic research ability, which is not rigorous and does not say, and at the same time it will be full of loopholes. Therefore, at this stage, I can only choose the first way. My five or six years of study of semiotics is only at the level of elementary school students compared to those scholars in the field of semiotics, and there will be various problems in the book, and I would like to ask you to point them out so that they can be revised in the future.
As a "postscript", it is inevitable to write some words of thanks. In the 28 years I have been engaged in design teaching, I am fortunate to have received the care and help of many teachers, friends, and students. As I write this, memories seem to soften the world. Thank you!
I went back to my hometown to visit my parents and told them, "I want to give them a gift." My parents told me not to spend money, and I said, "I didn't spend money — I just spent my time." I dedicate this book to my parents!
2023 Frost falls
Panyu, Guangzhou