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Analysis Terminology for Visual Rhetoric
Rhetorical critics have borrowed analysis terminology from C.S. Peirce to accomplish direct analysis of visual messages. Icon (or iconic signs), index (or indexical signs), and symbol (or symbolic signs) are three basic categories of recognizable characteristics of visual messages. Icons, or iconic signs, are recognized based on resemblance to known elements or items (e.g., one's ID photo on a company badge). Indexes, or indexical signs, are recognized based on understanding of a visual trace, imprint, or element that signals prior activity, or process, the agent of which is no longer visible (e.g., tire tracks in the sand). Symbols, or symbolic signs, are recognized only on the basis of a shared, learned code of visual signs (e.g., a Mercedes Benz logo, or any printed word in any written language). These three types of visual signs individually, or in combination, make up the visual design elements of nearly all visual messages.