Abstract
Urban signage systems play a significant role in perpetuating preferred ideologies and cultural conventions. When it comes to gender representation, signage systems display the “right way” in which men and women should look like and act. Throughout the years, with the help of the schematic images appearing in these signage systems (pictograms), visual grammar of gender has been constructed worldwide, establishing a collective concept of gender. Following linguistic landscape (LL) theory, which conceptualizes public space as a semiotic domain (Jaworski & Thurlow, 2001), and acknowledging public space is ever-gendered, reflecting and affecting a collective concept of gender (Massey 1994), the research explores pictograms used in signage systems and structures a conclusive visual grammar of gender. From a triangle as a dress through a fedora and body postures, this research reviews the common “necessary” graphic elements conveying ‘a woman’ and ‘a man’ and accordingly asks, does it have to be that way? The research draws from visual communication (Lester, 2021) and socio-semiotics (Scollon and Scollon, 2003), providing a multi-modal analysis (Kress & van Leeuwen, 2006) while discussing concepts of gender performativity (Butler, 1990), gender binary and the implications of human presence in signage systems.
Presenters
Onna SegevHead of Visual Communication Department, NB School of Design, Haifa University, Israel
Details
Presentation Type
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session
Theme
KEYWORDS
GENDER, VISUAL GRAMMAR, SIGNAGE, PICTOGRAMS
