NABA - AY 2018/2019 – BA in Graphic Design & Art Direction

Module in: SEMIOTICS

Course in: PROJECT CULTURE
Teacher: Giacomo Festi

INSTRUCTIONS FOR THE FINAL PAPER IN SEMIOTICS

- The final written paper in Semiotics is a necessary step to pass the exam. It is intended to
test if the semiotic conceptual tools are understood and can be applied by the student.
- The object for the analysis is chosen by the student and proposed to the teacher by email
or orally, after the lectures. In any case, it has necessarily to be agreed with the teacher
before starting the work. Once recorded, the choice can be eventually modified, just
respecting the deadline for the delivery. The choice remains valid for further exam dates.
- Previously non-validated papers are not accepted (in order to avoid plagiarism or very
similar analysis).
- Before starting the analysis, please have a fresh reading of the Semiotic reader and of the
course slides (students can also quote that materials inside the paper, where useful for the
analysis).
- As far as the length of the analysis is concerned, there’s no indication or preference, since
to the teacher what's more important is the quality than the quantity (conceived as the
competence to organize an analysis and proposing interesting interpretative results).
Therefore, the paper can be short, but relevant.
- After the work, imagine a creative title of your paper, motivated by the content, also trying
to play with your eventual skills as a copy. Try also to consider an internal separation in
paragraphs or sub-chapters, each of them to be titled.
- Deadline. Only for the first exam date after the course (in February 2019), the deadline,
exceptionally, will be 6 days before (up to you the calculus after the communication of the
date).
- In the next exam sessions (July, September, etc.), the paper has to be delivered, in general,
12 days before the date of the oral exam.
- Upload the file both on Blackboard (a specific assignment “final paper” will be created for
that process) and Edmodo.
- The paper will necessary be a pdf file, to be named following the usual convention:
"FamilyName_Name_Kindofobject_Semiotics_1819"
for instance, "Smith_John_Perfumeads_Semiotics_1718.pdf"
- All the visual documentation has to be put inside the file and not uploaded in separate
attachments. If the student will work with audiovisual commercials, please put a link inside
the document and, if possible, use screenshots to make more effective the reading of the
analysis.
- The paper will be evaluated, and the result will be communicated at the beginning of the
oral exam. In general, the oral exam will start from the discussion of the paper with the
commission (not a re-presentation by the student, but some commentaries and questions
by the teacher).

TYPOLOGY OF PAPERS STUDENTS CAN CHOOSE AND PROPOSE

In general, the paper will be a “corpus” analysis, hence 3 ads at minimum have to be chosen.
Advertisement can be of any kind in term of genre and expressions: billboard, print ad,
commercial, social media ad, etc. Please, be always attentive with the social identity of the
advertisement you choose (properly speaking: its statute as a print, commercial, Facebook,
Instagram, etc. The statute of the ad is affecting its format and the strategies of
communication themselves).

1. A whole multi-subjects campaign, with different realizations, at least three (for instance:
print version, audiovisual campaign, online version). In this case the main analysis will focus
on one form of textuality (possibly the most complex one), trying to apply most of the
semiotic concepts introduced. Furthermore, the student will problematize the relationship
between the "concept" of the campaign and the different realizations. The interest of this
kind of analysis exactly is in the exploration of the variants concerning the execution of the
concept.

2. The paper can be about a micro-corpus of different ads (at least three), inside a common
category of goods/products/brands. In this case the comparative aspect is more interesting,
always set up from a semiotic point of view. The chosen ads should be around a similar
period of time. For instance: three different perfume ads from three different brands in
autumn 2017 (when they are generally delivered).
3. A paper can be devoted to one brand or one specific product (product-brand), observing
the changing communication over time. In this case the mini-corpus (at least three) has to
be diachronic (more tokens along a temporal line), possibly trying to interpret the eventual
changes in the communication of that item. The comparison should be organized in a quite
short lapse of time (for instance, Ikea 2014-2015-2017).
Please, tendentially avoid the choice of the most studied and already analyzed brand (like
Coca cola, Apple, Barilla), unless you have specific reasons that you could discuss with the
teacher (in that case, you should at least integrate the most recent ads of the brand).

4. Student can choose a theme (like “evasion”) or a figurative motif (like the “mirror” or the
“mouth”). In this case the mini-corpus (at least three) should be made by ads of different
categories of products, just having a common element around which the communication
has been build. In this case, the paper is supposed to question the different role of the same
configuration (the theme of the motif) in different domains of communication, exploring the
different effects of meanings.

5. Students can also figure out other possible ways to elaborate a paper. Any proposal is
welcomed. If a student also finds a semiotic essay that think is interesting for his/her analysis,
he/she can ask for a substitution in the essays to be studied for the final oral part.