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SEMIOTIC KNOWLEDGE II
the thing about edges

after lots of requests i decided to continue my semiotic knowledge tutorial. i am a little bit in unknown territories here, i used to learn a little about this topic and the rest are just logical assumptions, so correct me if i talk too much bullshit. lets start again with the empty canvas again. the last time we divided the image horicontally and vertically and got the idea of future and past, positive and negative. now lets see how a picture or anything else is generally read. since i was born in a western culture, i start to read the picture from left to right, from top to bottom. this does not neccessarily mean that something is not skipped in this process. things that are too decent may only be noticed if the picture is reread.

one issue where this aspect is of great importance is in the placement of logos on pictures, letterheads, generally everything that should get brandmarked. assuming the point that the logo is not worked into the picture / compositing / design we can focus on the fact that the brandmark has six points where it would make sense to put it. point 1-4 are the edges, and there would be the other possibility to put it aligned in the middle at the top or bottom,but lets focus on the cornerpoints first and see the advantages / disadvantages of these points in term or recognision and memorability. the first point is, according to our little left to right / top to bottom theory the first thing that the viewer recognises from the image. nonetheless it is not a very good place to put a logo. why? generally the content is more important than the logo itself and the attraction of the viewer should be drawn first to the content, not the logo. the second issue is that, nonetheless it is the first thing you see, it can be easily overread, because the eye draws its attention to the middle, and might jump over the top left corner very fast.

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the right top corner is the classic place to put a logo. this position is not as offensive as 1 and 3, but very much more obvious than 4. you can say that its like an accentuation of the point after a sentence. first comes the content, then the logo. Point number 3 unites the disadvantages of 1 and 4. first of all it is very much easier to overlook, even then 1, and it also does a while to get to this point. All in all this position is the worst place to put a logo. Point number 4 is the decent variation of 2. it is not that obvious, but nonetheless it is the typical position to put a signature. Since we already started the sentence and paragraph comparison, this would be the last point of the last sentence, so it also draws very much attention. Anyway, all this is just a very basic analysis, sure there is more to it and lots of different aspects that i forgot or which i did not mention. if you have any critique or some ideas how to enhance this document, feel free to mail me at ddr@subnet.at .

regards, wilhelm

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