Semiotics

In today's lesson we learnt about semiotics, which on a representational level means the examining of a text. We learnt that when talking about semiotics, you have to focus on what the relationship between the elements of the text are, for example, the camera angle, font, colours, sound etc. And also how these factors could all be linked.

We then moved on to looking at four issues of the same magazine in which were released at the four seasons around the year; spring, summer, autumn and winter. We then had to match the seasons to a magazine issue and then explain why we thought the two went together.

For the first magazine, I came to the conclusion that it was for the winter issue as the colour scheme of the magazine was red and gold, which I always resemble with Christmas, and this being in winter, I decided that it was best fitted for this issue of the magazine.

For the second magazine, I came to the conclusion that it was for the summer issue as the colour scheme was very light and airy; using a baby blue as the background shade, and a sun kissed yellow as the font colour, immediatly made me think of summer. Also the fact that the image on the front was of a woman whom had very light makeup on and her hair loosely placed around her face, gave the impression of a natural summer look that could possibly be located of someone being on holiday on a relaxing beach.

For the third magazine, I came to the conclusion that it was for the autumn issue as the colour scheme used a deep shade of blue, and a light leafy colour of brown for the font colour which made me think of leaves falling from trees as they do in autumn, so to me this was fairly obvious to match autumn with this particular magazine issue.

Finally, for the fourth magazine, I came to the conclusion that it was for the spring issue of the magazine, as the colour scheme was very bold and bright. The colours used were a pale pink and white font. The pink stood out to me as being for the spring issue as it made me think of a warm springs night with a pale pink sky. The white font also helped me think of spring because, in spring, a lot of people begin to wear white, as a build up to the summer months ahead. And as the image on the cover was of a girl wearing a white dress, this linked to the type of clothing that I would wear in springtime so it made it easier for me to try and link which season the magazine issue went with.

In conclusion, my first taster of using semiotics to describe what I could see within an image using a mixture of colours, fonts, imagery etc went well, as I found it easier to point out factors that could help me understand an image, and made me think more in depth about what colours and fonts mean rather than just looking at them and not thinking anymore of it aside from the fact that it looks good.