About this item
Semiotics concepts from a design perspective, offering the foundation for a coherent theory of graphic design as well as conceptual tools for practicing designers.Graphic design has been an academic discipline since the post-World War II era, but it has yet to develop a coherent theoretical foundation. Instead, it proceeds through styles, genres, and imitation, drawing on sources that range from the Bauhaus to deconstructionism. In FireSigns, Steven Skaggs offers the foundation for a semiotic theory of graphic design, exploring semiotic concepts from design and studio art perspectives and offering useful conceptual tools for practicing designers.Semiotics is the study of signs and significations; graphic design creates visual signs meant to create a certain effect in the mind (a "FireSign") .
About the Author
Steven Skaggs is a native of Louisville, Kentucky where he began studying graphic design at the University of Louisville. He became interested in why a given design had different effects on various people. This question eventually led him, in the late 1980s, to begin a study of semiotics, which would consume much of the next twenty-five years. Along the way, about 1990 he founded Telesis (later Semios-L) , the first internet discussion group on the topic of semiotics and wrote a book that described the design considerations of a single branding project (Logos, 1994) . While continuing his practice of logo design, calligraphy and font design, he worked to develop an integrated semiotic theory for graphic design, work that would culminate in 2017's FireSigns. His calligraphic fine art is found in collections such as the Akademie der Künst (Berlin) , the Klingspor Museum (Offenbach) and the Sackner Archive of Concrete Poetry (Miami) . He has also won international awards for his font designs and has designed a special font, Maxular Rx, for people with macular degeneration. Although he has lived happily in New York, Atlanta, and Lawrence Kansas, he resides with his wife, the artist Laurie Doctor, in the city of his birth, where he is Professor of Design in the Hite Art Institute at the University of Louisville.
