Please take your time to look around the site and link to my sister sites. You will soon notice that the work I create is strongly influenced by the communication theories found in Semiotics and Rhetoric.
If you are looking for freelance design work, please check out Hildebrand Designs.
Semiotics and Graphic Design
The Meat of the Message
As a people, we are sign using creatures. We decode meaning from compositions with subconscious ease.* We stop at red octagons, smoke in designated areas, and change our outlooks based on the season. Our desires and even our identities are being shaped and altered by the signs that surround us*
As Designers, it is in Our nature to commune through aesthetics. To this end, We have become knowledgeable readers of signifying systems. And while We are able to pull meaning out of what We see, it is just as important to be able to breathe meaning into what We create. To do this, We must have an understanding of how meaning is formed and how the viewer can derive meaning from the combination of words and image.* This Visual Language shares much in common with the spoken word. Being in a unique position, we carry the burden of purveyors of that Visual Language.
It is Our responsibility as Designers and Our duty as the proprietors of this knowledge to employ it with effectiveness and caution. However, it has become apparent that there is a growing attitude that Designers can carry Our burden with little or no knowledge of Semiotics. Semiotics being the basis for communication through sign-constructed systems.
As Designers We have been given the responsibility of shaping the world through advertising, packaging, and public opinion. We cannot do this without fully understanding the fundamentals of communication theory.
We MUST take a stand against this malpractice of Design. In order to properly execute Our unique role as the purveyors of Visual Language, We must be masters of this Visual Communication; taking into account Our understandings of signs and what they signify.
To learn more about this topic, visit The Designer's Decree.
*Crow, David. Visible Signs. Switzerland: AVA Publishing SA, 2003.
Weltanschauung
Defining Style
This can be viewed as a designer's "style." In particular, their intellectual perspectives or approaches to design problems; shifting the focus away from a strict visual determinant. more...
Semiotics and Graphic Design
The Meat of the Message
As a people, we are sign using creatures. We decode meaning from compositions with subconscious ease.* We stop at red octagons, smoke in designated areas, and change our outlooks based on the season. Our desires and even our identities are being shaped and altered by the signs that surround us* more...
Jonathan Hildebrand
The Story Behind the Designer
Jonathan was born and raised in North Carolina and feels strong ties to the land and State that shaped his childhood. An avid draftsman and painter in his youth, Jonathan put down his brush to pursue another passion, language. As an undergraduate at UNC-Chapel Hill he studied Linguistics and Rhetoric. more...