French literary theorist Roland Barthes developed a system of cultural analysis known as semiotics using a
French literary theorist Roland Barthes developed a system of cultural analysis known as semiotics, using a selection of case studies explain how his theories can be applied to help understand the meanings behind design. Semiology, the general science of signs, was proposed by Ferdinand De Saussure, the founder of modern linguistics in the early years of the 1900’s, but remained just an idea until the 1960’s, when anthropologists literary critics and others, impressed by the success of linguistics sought to found profit from its methodological insights and found themselves developing the semiological science that Saussure had proposed. Barthes was an early upholder of semiology and much later, named semiology as his field. ... It is this fact that shows how semiotics is used in the design of the Ad. A system of meaning must already exist, whereby jetties are seen as strong, and this system exists in our human world, which the Ad is referring to. ... The Ad is using an existing sign system and creating a relationship between signifier ( Catherine Deneuve) and signified (glamour, beauty) to convey an overall message that its product has the same relationship (signifier - Bottle of perfume, signified - glamour, beauty) The work of the advertisement is not to create a meaning for Chanel No 5, but to translate meaning for it by means of a sign system that is in common knowledge. It is only because Catherine Deneuve’s face has a significance in one system that she can be used to create a new system of significance relating to Chanel. ... This perfume, “Babe” had been launched in a campaign using the new “discovery” Margaux Hemingway. ... In the mythological system of fashion and publicity Catherine Deneuve and Margaux Hemingway are mutually differentiated and only have value as signs in relation to each other. ... With the case studies discussed above, it is clear to see how the cultural analysis of semiotics can be used to understand the meaning of design.