Semiotics is the study of the social production of meaning from sign systems, the analysis of anything that can stand for something else. It consists of two major parts. One being “a sign is the combination of its signifier which is actually what we see in the image and the signified which is what the image actually means to us. Another part is “a sign does not stand on its own: it is part of a system”. Basically every sign we have that has meaning to us is part of a bigger picture.

We see examples of part one all the time in our every day life and each is part of a bigger picture. An example of this is a traffic light. As a signifier we literally see three lights that are red yellow and green, but as the signified we know that green means go, yellow means proceed with caution, and red means stop.