More on the Ambiguous

Without having any real content to draw from recently (as a result of having no classes or design jobs over the summer), I’ve been interested in images that don’t say anything specific but may imply a connotation. The image above is the cover for a book I recently bound that I plan on filling in the future. I didn’t have any message to convey but my interest in foreign type forms and the emphasis given on letters as a descendant of pictorial representation in Scott McCloud’s Understanding Comics led to the use of Russian fonts. The reason I’m mentioning my own work is to convey an aspect of graphic design that I’ve been thinking about recently. The communication not of distinct messages but of ambiguous images can lead to any number of interpretations. Somebody might be reminded of military camouflage, while someone else may immediately think of a cow or an ice cream wrapper. Ferdinand de Saussure would note the relationship between signifier and what is signified, that is, whatever the viewer sees is affected by what they already think, and whatever the creator sees is affected by their own predispositions. I’m sure someone who could read Russian would point out that the letters I placed together have no meaning whatsoever, while someone else may wonder what they mean.