Ira Glass

One of the things I learned as a young semiotics nerd was that if you have plot moving forward, no matter how banal the facts of it, simply the fact that the plot is rolling forward makes you wonder what's going to happen next, which creates suspense. So you can control peoples' attention simply by having things move forward in a story.

American Journalist

Semiotics is really interested in the questions like, what keeps you watching something, what keeps you - you know, what keeps you listening to a story on the radio? Like, what keeps you turning the pages in a book? What's the pleasure of it that's moving you forward, that's pulling you in and grabbing you and pulling you forward?

Paul Rand

Graphic Design, which fulfills aesthetic needs, complies with the laws of form and exigencies of two-dimensional space; which speaks in semiotics, sans-serifs, and geometrics; which abstracts, transforms, translates, rotates, dilates, repeats, mirrors, groups, and regroups, is not good design if it is irrelevant.

American Designer

I was a semiotics major at Brown, and there's this idea that stories are better, books are better, and movies are better if they cocked you off your axis and you were completely disoriented and you'd really have to rethink everything. Nobody has that experience, actually.

Umberto Eco

Semiotics is a general theory of all existing languages... all forms of communication - visual, tactile, and so on... There is general semiotics, which is a philosophical approach to this field, and then there are many specific semiotics.

Italian Novelist

As a scholar I am interested in the philosophy of language, semiotics, call it what you want, and one of the main features of the human language is the possibility of lying.

When I was in college, I was a semiotics major, which is this hopelessly pretentious body of French literary theory.

I don't read novels, but my semiotics study influenced everything about the way I read and edit and write.

Semiotics includes body language, sounds, and images, not just written symbols.

Beyond Words

The same sign can have different meanings in various cultures; semiotics helps understand these nuances.

Cultural Sensitivity

Semiotics is used in marketing to create impactful branding through symbols that resonate with consumers.

Marketing Insights

Semiotics in literature helps readers grasp deeper meanings and themes beyond the obvious.

Subtext in Stories

Authors often use semiotics to add complexity to characters without stating it explicitly.

Character Complexity

Semiotics is key in poetry to understand layered meanings conveyed through concise symbolism.