Article:

Graphism and Intersemiotic Translation. An Old Idea or a New Trend in Advertising?

When visualizing verbal language, graphic design plays a prominent role as a major component for intersemiotic translation. To examine the relationship between verbal and non-verbal semiotic systems, the present research sets up a pilot study on three advertisements that use verbal language as part of their iconic messages, that is images made out of typographic elements, and examines how viewers respond to this form of visual information. Additional-ly it investigates, with the use of eye-tracking, where viewers look and com-pares scientific results of ›areas of interests‹ with the respondents’ answers. It is suggested that even though these advertisements are classified as having a dominant iconic element made out of letterforms, the linguistic semiotic sys-tem seems to attract more the consumers’ attention. This provides a platform for future research as altering the existing graphic design parameters of the advertisements examined would probably provide different results.