




































CHAPTER 6: 
MEANING MAKING IN CITY ORIENTATION: 

INTERSEMIOSIS AND CONTENDING ISSUES 

Contributed by 

Lloyd Robinson 

INTRODUCTION  

The argument for signs in orientation design begins essentially 

from the clarification of some basic communication issues. Simple 

but significant functions of signs are used by this study to avoid 

any form of diversion from the fundamental study of visual 

communication. The intention is to guide the discussion by 

situating the study within the broader scope of environmental 

graphic design. Firstly, signs are elements in a communication 

process. That process is considered an operation or continuous 

action that takes place in a manner relevant to wayfinding activity. 

To comprehend how signs can be utilized in wayfinding, this essay 

analyzes the study of signs as visual language. A great 

consideration of the built environment and people’s perception and 

interpretation of symbols in wayfinding design is given in this 

essay. In a social-semiotic approach to meaning-making, imagery 

can be seen as both socially external and internal. There is outward 

social interaction in which meaning is constantly created, in a 

transformation process of interactions with and responses to the 

prompts of social order and culturally shaped environments. 

Fredric Jameson (1972) postulates about the breakdown of 

language, stating that: “the signifier in isolation becomes ever more 

material… As meaning is lost… A signifier that has lost its 

signified has therefore been transformed into an image”. This 



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postulation shadows the independence of symbols and 

symbolism’s meaning-making attributes.  

This study is concerned with the usage of icons and 

symbols for urban wayfinding, and semiotics is seen as helping to 

understand how meaning is formed, how people interpret a sign, 

and how they draw on personal or cultural experience to understand 

a sign. Signs are the objective carriers of potential knowledge 

(Brier, 2004). Semiotics is about communicating ideas or concepts 

to users. Charles Sanders Peirce was less concerned with the 

linguistic aspect of semiotics pioneered by Ferdinand de Saussure 

in the early 1900's, but rather he was more interested in how people 

made sense of the world around them. These signs referred to by 

Peirce often need interpretation, and this interpretation is based on 

the total semantic network and experience of the interpreter, which 

according to him, includes the emotional and social aspects (Brier, 

2004). This insight leads to the need for a broader semiotic 

framework of communication and sign interpretation. 

 

Reviewing Iconography and Iconology 

“Iconography means the study of images, and at its simplest, the 

practice of identifying images in works of art” (D'Alleva, 2005:20).  

D'Alleva also classifies both semiotics and iconography in the 

context of meaning:  

Though semiotics is older as a philosophy of 

meaning, as its roots go back to ancient times, both 

iconography and semiotics address the meaning of 

works of art: what they mean and how they produce 

those meanings. (p.17) 

 

Though the formalists’ theories proposed by Heinrich Wölfflin 

(1864-1945) were influential during the early parts of the twentieth 

century, who argued that unchanging principles governed artistic 

styles, others like Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) for example had 



Meaning-Making in City Orientation:… 

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earlier argued for the special character of aesthetic experience. As 

Erwin Panofsky (1892-1968) (1970) put it:  

In a work of art, 'form' cannot be divorced from 

'content'- the distribution of colour and lines, light 

and shade, volumes, and planes, however delightful 

as a visual spectacle, must also be understood as 

carrying a more-than-visual meaning. (p.205)  
 

At its most subtle, iconography works to retrieve the 

allegorical meanings contained in works of art. To define these 

terms, a symbol is something that is recognized as representing an 

idea or entity. A set of scales is, for example, a symbol for the idea 

of justice. Using a set of symbols that are widely recognized to 

represent an idea or entity, an allegory is a narrative in the form of 

a personification like an image (D'Alleva, 2005). So, a woman 

holding a set of scales is an allegorical figure of justice (Figure 1). 

Symbols and allegories are culturally specific, and their meanings 

are not always evident to every member of that culture, much less 

outsiders (Robinson, 2023).  

 

 
Fig. 1 Justitia, Goddess of Justice 

 

Iconography also falls within the language of vision and 

meaning. This language was an attempt by the Bauhaus theorists to 

isolate visual language from verbal language (Lupton & Miller, 

2006). This theory inadvertently strengthens iconography’s non-

verbal paradigm. That graphic elements like icons and symbols fit 



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into visual culture becomes understandable. The understanding of 

the epistemology of visual language has been attested, with its 

dominance in contemporary society, both as a means of 

communication and as a source of meaning (Jay, 2002; Mirzoeff, 

2009). According to Mirzoeff (2009) meanings are created and 

contested, stating that “because signs are always contingent, they 

can be understood in their historical context, and this inquiry 

remains central to an understanding of visual culture.”  

Iconology, on the other hand, is the phase of interpretation 

that follows the identification of iconography. These 

interpretations investigate the meaning of allegories, symbols, and 

motifs in their cultural context. In developing his theory of 

iconology, Panofsky was influenced by Ernst Cassirer's (1874-

1945) theory of significant form (Holly, 1984). Cassirer argued that 

“mages represent fundamental principles or ideas (symbolic 

values) in each culture so that we can see works of art as documents 

of an artist, religion, philosophy, or even an entire civilization.” 

The idea of significant form is different from the formalist idea: the 

formalist idea strips away cultural meaning, but Cassirer (1955) 

argued that significant forms are loaded with cultural meaning. 

Cassirer (1955) noted that a researcher's own personal psychology, 

experience, and philosophy will shape his or her interpretation. 

Iconography enabled scholars to retrieve content embedded in 

works of art. Panofsky (1939) and Meaning in the Visual Arts 

(1955), defined three levels of iconographical and iconological 

analysis, each with its method and objective. However, when 

iconographic analysis is made, it helps to work through Panofsky's 

three stages, but rarely will there be a need for any systematic 

explanation of all three in a final analysis. Social influence and 

convention do affect iconic meaning. An iconic relation between 

the physical thing carrying the encoded sign (known as the signal) 

and the thing being referred to (known as the denotative referent) 

is a mapping of the signal's feature set (Liu, et al., 1998). 



Meaning-Making in City Orientation:… 

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The subtlety and abstraction of iconic imagery on picture 

planes puts symbolism within the realm of metaphysics and to a 

great extent a bridge of form and structure with cognition. 

Metaphysics refers to explanations of phenomena by any 

nonmaterial force, like the mind or spirit—things that cannot be 

investigated by the methods of science (Bernard, 2006). This 

phenomenon does not deny the existence of metaphysical 

knowledge, but stresses that scientific and metaphysical knowledge 

are quite different (Bernard, 2006). However, there is an inquiry 

into how typography functions in a multimodal composition and an 

even narrower question of the functions of the linguistic message 

about the iconic message. This point could be important when 

discussing the juxtaposition of text with images in multimodal 

compositions. Modality, the way in which information is to be 

encoded for presentation to humans, is more closely associated 

with the semiotic models of Charles Sanders Peirce (1839-1914) 

because meaning is seen as an effect of a set of signs as compared 

to those proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913).  

 

Historic Context of Semiosis   

In Peirce's model, reference is made to an object when the sign is 

interpreted recursively by another sign; a conception of meaning 

that implies a classification of different types of signs. For 

example, a meaning that is contained in a wayfinding form cannot 

be removed from the iconicity of that form. In Saussure’s view, 

sign is the complete result of the association of the signified with 

the signifier (Saussure, 1983:67; Saussure, 1959:67). If the 

usability of handheld devices with its imagery is popular culture, 

and the increasing embrace of media imagery is visual culture, then 

it is pragmatic to say iconography in the space realm is both, having 

exposed its ethnolinguistic traits to the theory of signifier and 

signified by Saussure. In a conversation with Cornelia Vosser, 

Isolde Frey highlights the universality of symbols by arguing that, 

“we cannot guide anybody if they cannot understand the text 



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(language) or the image (icon) (Frey, 2013). In this context, the 

idea holds because this creates a balance between function and 

identity where text becomes the language and image is represented 

by the icon.  

Saussure played a key role in the development of semiotics 

with his argument that language is a system of signs that needs to 

be understood to fully understand the process of linguistics (Culler, 

1976). Burke’s (1966) insight, though rooted in rhetoric, still 

substantiates the philosophy of language based on the theory of 

language as a symbolic action. The study of semiotics examines the 

signs and types of representation that humans use to express 

feelings, ideas, thoughts, and ideologies (Ryder, 2006), and the 

effort to its configuration as an interdisciplinary perspective 

(Sebeok, 1976). The signified, a mental concept and the signifier, 

a verbal manifestation, are two things that are fundamental to the 

study of signs with their sequence of images and linguistic 

realization (Barry, 2002). The signifier is the image; the signified 

is the representation.  

Semiotics or semiosis, the study of signs and significations, 

which is the process of creating meaning, has gained momentum 

over the last several years (Herbert, 2006). This is due, in part, to 

the growth of multimedia, the broadened scope of visual culture 

and other communication platforms. Some concepts of semiotics 

are instrumental to this research. These include open text, semiotic 

triangle, signifier and signified. The idea of sign can be defined by 

its functionality. Herbert (2006) broadly defines it as “something 

that is used in place of something else (something else being a 

signified).” However, something else that is a sign can be an idea 

or any object that requires interpretation. In the Aristotelian 

tradition, the sign is broken down into three parts signifier, 

signified and the deferent which means the thing to which the sign 

refers are just two parts that were adopted by Saussure as a semiotic 

theory for signs and meaning, while the third part is Peirce’s 



Meaning-Making in City Orientation:… 

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theoretical vision of semiotics (Herbert, 2006). Peirce distinguishes 

the representation, the interpretant, and the object. 

As there is also a relationship between the visual perception 

of signs and the cultural background of humans, comprehending 

signs provides a tool for place location in wayfinding design for 

orientation. We create symbols and images to understand 

environmental surroundings, individually in our images and 

socially in images we share with others (Kepes, 1944). Based on 

visual representation, a series of iconic designs and symbolism has 

been developed for analysis and adoption in spatial orientation. 

These designs and models are based primarily on fundamental 

concepts of graphic imagery and psychology such as visual 

perception, human position, size and colour of the signage. As an 

extension of Panofsky's cultural contextualization, we have 

gradually moved beyond iconic interpretation into issues of 

reception, attempting to understand not just hidden meanings 

embedded in specific themes but also how subjects are received 

and understood by road users.  

Because icons can work on many platforms, from 

descriptive to cultural and symbolic, they can be applied to the 

wider relational framework of content. The easiest is the 

descriptive, “where the multivalent nature of images causes the 

greatest problems” (Eliade, 1961:15). Immanuel Kant’s (1724-

1804) belief that the human brain plays a major role in perception 

was a major influence in Panofsky’s (1955) theories, instigating his 

work as to how the human brain perceived images (Hourihane, 

2005). However, the majority of iconographical studies fall short 

of considering form and function - factors that are key to 

understanding the meaning of any work. The characteristic of 

iconography is drawn from the history of representational but has 

been expanded by the communicative networks of legibility and 

meaning. There is an interdisciplinary nature of scientific endeavor 

in the postmodern age, as they have become complex and trans-

disciplinary, but turns around to express doubt in this collaboration 



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(Brier, 2004). This reversal of opinion is surprising because various 

concepts of communication can help us understand and develop 

social systems such as self-organizing and self-producing 

networks, as we need a deeper understanding of the ethics and 

aesthetics foundation of the existence of these new systems. In a 

series of collected papers, Peirce (1911) conceived the construction 

of meaning, and the aptness of these definitions is quite revealing.   

Proponents of Peirce’s ideas structured graphic design 

curricula around his typology of signs and his notion of interpretant 

normally described as the function of sign. Unlike icons that have 

been extensively used in digital platforms, symbols in urban 

wayfinding design have been minimally utilized. Golledge (1999) 

asked, “How do variation in the environment influence the storage 

of environmental information and the selection?” Inquiring if the 

symbols are explanatory enough in terms of colour, size and 

semiotics, as against the background of the urban environments are 

some key issues to address. Icons and symbols are, to a large extent, 

still dependent on the need to find textual support for its vast and 

expanding retinue of subject matter (Hourihane, 2005). This 

characteristic has indeed impeded wayfinding design research, 

where the overriding need to find a textual basis has created an 

artificial association between the visual and verbal, and the textual.  

 

Applicable Meanings in Sign Development   

For this study, symbolic icons are emphasized. Both exemplar and 

symbolic icons are Peirce’s indexes as both serve as signifiers. In 

both cases, the signifier is not arbitrary even where it does not 

resemble what is being signified. Resemblance icons are most 

effective when communicating simple actions, objects, and 

concepts, and they work best when the representation is simple and 

direct (Bradley, 2016). However, they are less effective as 

complexities increase. In wayfinding for example, showing a 

curved line to indicate the road curves ahead works well, but 

something more needs to be added if the idea is to communicate 

http://vanseodesign.com/web-design/reducing-realism/
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that the driver should slow down. Though symbolic icons are like 

exemplar icons, they are, however, more effective at a much higher 

level of abstraction. For example, a padlock is used to represent a 

secure web link. This is because people associate locks with some 

level of security (Plate 1).  

 

 
 

Plate 1: Signs are made up of different components like words, images, 

and context - all of which combine to create a visual language which 

helps us understand an idea or concept (Boulton, 2005). 

 

From Saussure’s point of view, a sign can be broken down 

into the signifier (the perceivable part of the sign and the signified 

the understandable part of the sign). Because meanings are affected 

by the perceiver, viewing and understanding are re-creative acts 

(Howard, 1996:84). Symbols and icons of a culture can also be 

understood and appreciated by another. This multicultural and 

social mutation is more evident in symbols and icons developed 

and used in the Olympic Games – an event that greatly utilizes 

symbols in directional wayfinding. When we can see the object in 

the sign, “we are often left with a sense that the icon has brought 

us closer to the truth than if we had seen an index or a symbol” 

(Grayson, 1998 p.35).  

From a graphic design point of view, a sign can be defined 

as a lettered or patterned board that conveys meaning, command, 

or directions (Sobottka, 2010). Various literature have identified 

icons, symbols, and indexes as the three types of signs. For this 

study, the focus is on icons as they are directly related to what they 



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represent, the meaning is immediately evident, and it can be a 

smaller part that represents a whole with minimal reference to the 

index where a concept of symbolism requires indexing. References 

like these are considered because a symbol does not have a direct 

connection to what it represents, but the meaning usually needs to 

be learned through association. Indexes, on the other hand, are 

signs that point to an instruction or message (Sobottka, 2010). 

Signs are potential information because they depend on the 

interpretation of the receiver, and there must be an interpreter for 

any available information. However, to become information, 

differences must be seen as signs by the observer. This happens 

when they become internally developed interpretants. Peirce 

(1911) writes about this in his definition of the sign process: 

A Sign is a first which stands in a genuine triadic relation 

to a second, called its object, as to be capable of 

determining a Third, called its Interpretant, to assume the 

same triadic relation to its Object in which it stands itself 

to the same Object.... A Sign is a Representamen with a 

mental Interpretant. (p.99-100) 

 

 The object here is that aspect of reality that the 

representation signifies. In a way, the object in Peirce's description 

is also a sign. Peirce's semiotic philosophy develops cognitive 

science beyond the limitations of rationalistic and mechanistic 

information. While icons can be instrumental in conveying 

signifier information to a less literate population, symbols provide 

a quick functional representation of a place or service (Gibson, 

2009). For example, the word ‘café’ may not mean much on a 

wayfinding signage to an illiterate or a non-English speaking 

visitor, but the image of a teacup (signifier) with steam can be 

easily understood by almost everyone as a drinking device 

(signified). Likewise, the image of a steaming pot and teapot is 

aimed at non-Chinese-speaking customers (Figure 2 and 3).  It is 

evident that the signified, rather than the signifier, is relevant to 



Meaning-Making in City Orientation:… 

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spatial orientation and cognition. This insight into the nature of 

spatial cognition in real-life environments creates the potential for 

the development of a symbolic approach to wayfinding design that 

is more centred on the user, and as such, may inform the creation 

of user-oriented environments. However, where such structures 

were similar in their construction, there were no existing principles 

with which to determine structure or terminology. Panofsky's 

pioneering study ultimately changed the concept of symbols which 

provided a framework for interpreting and understanding 

iconography and iconology. His theories also examined the 

psychology and mental processes involved in interpretation and 

understanding creative work. 

 

 
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Icons and symbols are not arbitrary, so this belief blurs the 

meaning-making components of signs and visual language. The 

images form the identity of the object that distinguishes places 

from ideas and must have meaning and sufficient value for 

orientation (Figure 4). The relationship between symbols and 

society as well as the association between human mobility and 

spatial orientation makes a theoretical framework of visual culture 

Fig. 2 This icon is 

communicative as well as 

informative for non-English 

speaking customers. Source: 

Identity Group, 2016 

 

Fig. 3 This icon is also 

communicative as well as 

informative for non-Chinese 

speaking customers. Source: 

David Gibson, 2009 

 

http://www.identitygroup.com/3810-2/


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in urban environments. Attempting to inform and persuade, designs 

are developed as an argument within a two-dimensional space that 

defines an audience’s future experience (Tyler, 1992). Though sign 

design creates some sort of experience for the user, experience is 

rarely the primary communication goal of signs. This is because 

signs in wayfinding are as conversational as they are experiential. 

 
Fig. 4 Place identity: Stadium. Source: Author  

 

Findings Between Signs and Multimodality  

There are no connections between a symbol and what it 

represents. However, standards and conventions aid the 

connectivity between symbols and what they represent. According 

to Bradley (2016), in identifying language, numbers, traffic lights 

and even flags as symbols, what is to be communicated must be 

learned. This is because the connections must be learned from 

interpretation, and it gradually becomes associated with the idea or 

concept it represents over time. A sign provides a means to 

understanding how people exchange meaning (Mavers, nd). Signs 

form a whole when a multimodal methodology is utilized and 

encompasses all modes of representation and communication. A 

strand of cognitive study in the context of multimodality lies in how 

different modes of representation might influence human 

interaction, interpretation and meaning making. Various studies 

suggest that different modes of visual representation and 

communication change the way information is perceived and 

understood. Various strands investigate patterns in reception of 

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Meaning-Making in City Orientation:… 

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multimodality, particularly factors that influence the perception 

and interpretation process (Price & Pontual Falcao, 2011). 

Perception and interpretation of visual messages are perceived as 

interactive meeting between the users and the multimodal message 

(Holsanova, 2010), so, the meaning is created by the individual 

recipients by multiple factors affecting their means of integrating 

different modes of representation. 

 The expected connection between a signifier and a 

signified in symbols is completely arbitrary and must be culturally 

learned even though symbols are perceived to be at the opposite 

end from icons (Bradley, 2016). A wayfinding icon can become a 

symbol over time through constant usage. An example is the floppy 

disk icon that is still used to represent saving a digital file, even 

though floppy disks are no longer in use. Icons normally bear a 

physical resemblance to what is being represented, and there are 

four types of iconic representation: resemblance icons which are 

direct likenesses of the objects they represent; exemplar 

icons which depict a common example of the class of objects they 

represent; symbolic icons which convey a concept at a higher level 

of abstraction than the object depicted; and the arbitrary icon that 

has no relationship to a concept and their association must be 

learned (Bradley, 2016). Symbols and icons are best used when the 

actions, objects, or concepts being represented are well-

established. 

 

Summary    

The rationality of icons and symbols for orientation lies in their 

ability to visually communicate and direct. Symbolism will 

continue to aspire in bridging linguistic gaps in diverse socio-

cultural environments. As urban landscapes increasingly become 

more culturally diverse, symbols will continue to shape and 

influence environmental communication. It has been tempting to 

assume all signs communicate in the same way, but different types 

of signs communicate quite differently in a variety of ways. This 



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phenomenon is the creation of images that resemble what they 

represent or through what they represent and the meaning they 

create. Iconography and symbolism have harmonized well with 

some key visual communication theories but in some cases, have 

conflicted with cognitive psychology. The strength of iconographic 

tools derives from their ability to visually articulate meaning and 

fluidity in orientation within the dimensions of a particular place.  

By identifying the essential elements of place, signs in 

wayfinding facilitate a broad understanding of how the concept of 

direction is constructed and opens avenues of visual inquiry and 

analyses into the details of this process. Information is a universal 

need, but vital information is not readily available to everyone, 

hence a philosophy was adopted by this paper that heightens the 

importance of wayfinding and places priorities on sign design. 

Because of signs’ visual impact, trans-disciplinary collaboration, it 

is hoped, will expand the conversation about spatial intentions and 

orientation. In this essay, signs in urban wayfinding have not been 

seen as a triumph of imagery over cognition, but as a bridge of 

representation and specificity. Their simplicity makes icons and 

symbols unique, freeing them of any form of bias or idiosyncrasy. 

This calls for people to find meaning in iconographic simplicity 

even with abstraction.  

 

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