Paul Brandreth

Graphic Design Year One

Task 4 CTS

El Lissitzky – Beat the White with the Red wedge - 1920

Alexandra Rodchenko - Lilya Brik – 1924

Write a semiotic analysis comparing 2 similar images (or texts to use the correct semiotic terminology) of your choosing, ideally a piece of graphic design. The analysis only has to be about 250-500 words but you must attempt to use key semiotic language such as denote, connote, signify etc.

 

 

I have chosen the two images above, El Lissitzky – Beat the White with the Red wedge – 1920 and Alexandra Rodchenko - Lilya Brik – 1924, because I feel that they are both similar images from the same art movement relating to the Russian Avant-Garde era, and whilst I am studying Graphic Design I feel it is important to look at previous eras of design to use as influence in my design.

 

Both images are similar in the way the use abstract shapes to communicate different messages. In Beat the White with the Red wedge, by Lissitzky, The sign is the abstract shapes used mainly with the shape triangle and smooth circle. The triangle shape invading the white circle is the signifier. The signified concept based on the time and location is the idea of the red triangle representing the communist, which is defacing and entering the white royalists who support the old government regime. The denotation is the red abstract triangle and the white oval circle. The connotation is the way the red triangle gives the idea of power and blood because of the shape and colour but I also think that the positioning represents a knife attacking the royalist’s regime.

 

However the Lilya Brik image by Rodchenko uses the same abstract shapes and is also from the same Russian Soviet union era but the message being communicated is different. The sign is the woman, Lilya Brik shouting books in Russian. The signifier is the word Books, but the signified concept is the way the messaged is being delivered using the triangle as the layout as if she was shouting. The denotation is the shape of the sharp triangular shape expanding away from the woman’s face, and the connotation is the shape of the triangle expanding away from the face gives the communication to the audience that she is shouting something important, which I feel was created to grab the viewers eye to read the message