The level to which a certain symbol or image can be understood is dependent on the audience, society, media and context but a majority of the time we can interpret them no matter who or where we are. Images are powerful tools when it comes to spreading messages around, and are very efficient at doing so. Some symbols are also very versatile, and when combined with other symbols can form entirely new meaning that's still make sense and can be understood by a mass audience. Semiotics is the study of meaning-making, the philosophical theory of signs and symbols.' Semiotics are very important to designers and artists especially, because those professions communicate ideas based on the theory of symbols and images with meaning. They refer to the way we shape and change images to allow others to understand images despite the cultural references, social ideals and knowledge about world that could be needed to understand it. Ideas like these include things such as the colour blue being associated with cold and the colour red being associated with hot.
From the lecture, the idea also was introduced that objects have the capacity to stand for more than just their intended purpose and the obvious meaning behind it, like a metaphor. I completely agree with this, and as someone who practices with images every day I like the idea of images and objects being much more versatile and representing much more than one thing.
