Conceptual model of design in the context of semiotic-interactive methodology

Gabrielyan Tigran Olegovich ORCID: 0000-0002-3319-2462 PhD in Art History Associate Professor, Department of Graphic Art and Communicative Design, V.I. Vernadsky Crimean Federal University 295007, Russia, Republic of Crimea, Simferopol, Akademika Vernadskogo, 4, office 295049 tigrangabr84@gmail.com

Introduction

The directions of modern graphic and communicative design have three coexisting subdirectories: traditional, digital and generative. Each of them, among other features, is the result of changes in technical and technical means that affect the design process and the expressive qualities of the artistic and design image of the design solution.

The traditional direction arose as a result of the development of printing technologies, which made it possible to make visual and graphic communications mass. At the end of the XX century. there is a synthesis of the traditional (material) and emerging digital trends, involving the use of various graphic editors to speed up the designer's work, as well as the use of new expressive means of pixel and vector graphics. With the advent of the worldwide Internet communication network, the digital space of visual and graphic communications is being formed, new types of design solutions are emerging: advertising banners (animated and interactive), graphical user interfaces (websites, desktop and mobile applications, landing pages), multimedia publications, presentations, etc. ^{[35; 3; 26; 11; 2; 7]}. In parallel, the generative direction is developing, which involves the automatic creation of design solutions by a computer program (design system) ^[5].

In the modern generative subdirection, two more branches can be distinguished: digital-generative and conceptual-generative.

Digital-generative subdirection, involves working in the context of the digital paradigm direction, but using the capabilities of automated (algorithmic) and artificially intelligent design systems, involving the generation of logos, visual identification systems, animation (pictograms, interfaces, screensavers, etc.), banners, collages, presentations, graphical user interfaces ^{[24; 28; 12; 17; 20; 33; 27; 32; 34; 15; 1; 29, 19]}. A modern graphic and communicative designer uses, or will soon have to use, digital generative tools, for example, to automate and intellectualize various stages of the design process, as a result of which a new form of thinking is formed ^{[18, p. 284; 8, p. 11]}. At the same time, people are often involved in training such systems, as those who prepare training material and teachers who adjust the system in the learning process, thereby forming hybrid (automated/artificially intelligent) design systems ^{[16, p. 2; 21, p. 396; 23, p. 30; 14]}.

The most interesting is the conceptual generative subdirection, which implies a significant transformation of the roles of participants (communicators) of artistic and design activities, leading to individualized communication between the customer and the consumer ^{[5, pp. 188-189; 30, pp. 277, 279, 283]}. The importance of this direction is determined by the strengthening of the creative activity of a human designer, in a situation of alienation of performing (craft) functions to automated and artificially intelligent design systems.

Thus, the role of a professional designer involves the creation of invariants-concepts for a design system, which are subsequently used to generate design solutions. There is a synthetic role (customer, designer-editor, user, consumer). It involves defining the project task, editing the characteristics and components of the generated design solution, using (if possible) another design solution as a sample, perceiving the communicative and aesthetic qualities of the new generated design solution. The role of a designer-generator is also being formed — a dialog agent that allows a professional designer and a representative of a synthetic role to interact with the design system as an intellectual assistant who is a passive-active participant in the design process. Intellectuality becomes a means of expression (material) with which all participants in the design process begin to work ^{[23, p. 33]}.

The design solutions generated by the design system can be created based on the wishes of the customer (a representative of a synthetic role), as well as on the basis of automatic and artificially intelligent monitoring of the digital profile of a representative of a synthetic role. In the second case, the agent (digital profile analyst) studies the digital profile (data representing the experience of interaction with various digital systems) to identify meaningful and expressive preferences of the representative of the synthetic role ^{[18, p. 31, 282; 21, p. 396; 30, p. 306]}. In this case, the digital profile analyst begins to interact directly with the designer-generator. As a result, design solutions are created (generated) that meet the preferences of the representative of the synthetic role ^{[23, p. 32]}.

The emergence and change of the roles of communicators leads to the formation of a dialogical, interactive model of communication — a model of interaction of communicators in the process of creating invariants-concepts and design solutions ^[31]. Interactive, dialog interaction assumes a single communication format that allows a person and generative design systems to correctly interpret each other's requests. Such a format can be focused on the semiotic form of communication implementation, through semiotic signs and sign systems. Moreover, it is important to explicitly represent meaningful and expressive elements in semantics, syntactics and pragmatics in each individual component of a design solution or invariant concept (design program) as a special case of a design solution ^{[4, p. 79]}.

The emergence of a conceptually generative direction, the change of existing and the formation of new roles of communicators, the transformation of the communication model, the formation of a semiotic communication format - leads to the emergence of a semiotic—interactive methodology (a set of principles and strategies of design activity). The indicated methodology leads to a change in the expressive and technical and technological qualities of the result of design activity. Generated design solutions begin to have digital, semiotic-interactive and artificially intelligent characteristics.

For a multi-sided consideration of the features of the impact of the presented changes, the study is focused on an interdisciplinary approach by performing a systematic analysis of the main characteristics of the result of design activity, in the context of a semiotic-interactive methodology. The result of the analysis is the formation of a conceptual model of interrelated characteristics of the result of design activity represented by design solutions.

Accordingly, the purpose of this article is: to describe the conceptual model of a design solution in the context of a semiotic-interactive methodology implemented in the conceptual-generative subdirection of modern graphic and communicative design.

The objectives of the article are as follows:

1) definition of dialogical, semiotic and interactive qualities of design solutions;

2) identification of digital, semiotic-interactive design-software expressive means;

3) description of the features of semiotic-deconstructivity (analyticity) and semiotic-synthetism (constructiveness) of design solutions in the context of design activity;

4) the influence of technical and technological features of the tools and design environment (design system) on the formation of automated and artificially intelligent qualities of design solutions.

The main part

Interactive semiotic-interactive graphics

The presence of a digital profile analyst capable of forming massively individualized project tasks by means of a semiotic-interactive methodology allows us to talk about the emergence of dialogical semiotic-interactive design solutions. This concept is to some extent synonymous with the concepts of intelligent graphics and smart graphics, but in the context of the study, it is directly related to the semiotic structure of the generative design system ^[25].

The dialog form of interaction between a digital profile analyst and a designer-generator involves the continuous generation and editing of design solutions. This happens in the automatic mode of monitoring, creating and adapting a design solution to the actual needs of the user /consumer. It turns out that a design solution can be not only static (not changing in time and not being able to be changed by the user), dynamic (animated, videographic), interactive (modifiable through the interface), but also generative (created by a designer-generator). Moreover, we are not talking about a once-generated design solution, which can be either static, dynamic, or interactive, — we are talking about the state of continuous generation of design solutions as a result of a continuous dialogic communicative act between two automated and/or artificially intelligent design systems - a digital profile analyst and a designer-generator. At the same time, a human communicator (the customer and the designer-editor are representatives of a synthetic role) can enter into such a continuous generative design process with their requests to adjust the overall course of generation.

Digital semiotic-interactive design-software expressive means

The expressive quality of the dialogical semiotic-interactive design solution is the organic synthesis of various design programs. These can be design programs of invariant concepts that are not part of existing design solutions or invariant concepts of components of previously created design solutions. Synthesis can be carried out in an automated and/or artificially intelligent way. The first approach assumes algorithmic implementation ^{[24; 12; 27]}, and the second — neural network ^{[28; 17; 22; 20; 33; 32; 34; 15; 1; 29]}.

Frequent or continuous generation implies a frequent or continuous transition from one design solution to another, forming the phenomenon of versioning. A large number of versions can lead to changes in design decisions in real time. Depending on the speed of transition from version to version, static or dynamic design solutions can be formed. Moreover, the dynamics will be determined not only by the corresponding design programs (for example, the animation principle of gradual frame-by-frame change of the object), but also by the frequency of transition from version to version. If necessary, components for interactive interaction may appear in different versions, thereby forming an interactive design solution.

Each version of such a design solution can be considered complete and integral in its synchronicity (at a specific time). But the design solution as such is incomplete in its diachrony (in the time continuum). The potential incompleteness and versioning of the design solution form a special expressiveness of morphing one design program into another. This is a full-fledged morphing of one semiotic entity into another, in which the combined components can be similar not only visually (syntactically-pragmatically), but also semantically, and separately syntactically or pragmatically. At the same time, the technical and technical expressive quality of morphing is transformed into a rhetorical, artistic means of changing the image and meaning through tropes and rhetorical figures ^[6].

Semiotic-deconstructivity (analyticity)

The project component. The possibility of the potential existence of all possible varieties of it in one design solution allows us to talk about a constantly changing approach to the deconstruction of a dialog semiotic-interactive design solution. This refers to the feature when a project task at one particular time can determine a design solution as a single simple one, and at another - as a complex—constructive (complex-structured), or simple serial, or complex-constructive (complex-structured) serial ^[10]. At the same time, at a specific time, they can be generated not changing, generated automatically changing or interactively generated. Their network semiotic structures (interconnected sign components) either decrease (the number of connections and components decreases) and simplify, then increase (branch out) and become more complicated. Such deconstructive features determine the macro-level of deconstruction of dialogical semiotic-interactive design solutions.

At the same time, each individual component of the network structure of the design solution, represented by semiotic signs (and plans of semantics, syntactics and pragmatics) can also be transformed, depending on the requirements of the project task. These changes can affect the primary and secondary means of expression, as well as the means of harmonizing artistic form and composition. Such changes make it possible to determine the micro-level of deconstructive possibilities of dialogical semiotic-interactive design solutions ^{[4, p. 79]}.

Artistic (rhetorical) component. In the format of dynamic (diachronic) dialog-change there is also an artistic component. Depending on the design characteristics (in fact, the semiotic-interactively presented project task), the artistic component can be leveled to the level of a combinatorial design program or can be implemented by means of design programs of rhetorical tropes (for example, metaphors and metonymies). They can manifest themselves both in relation to the entire design solution, and in individual components, actualizing all semiotic plans or only some of them. Simply put, at a particular time, the analysis (deconstruction) of a design solution can reveal the absence or weak manifestation of the artistic component, and at another time - the presence and deep elaboration.

Semiotic-synthetics (constructiveness — design-programmability)

The semiotic-interactive design program of the design solution is focused on the formation (construction) of an artistic and design image.

Depending on the dynamically changing project task, the construction of the design image of a design solution can occur in different ways. These can be changes at the macro or micro level. There may be an expansion or narrowing, complication or simplification of the semiotic network structure, but with detailed syntactic and pragmatic semiotic plans. The design image of the design solution will be formed through universal combinatorial and specific design programs (related to a certain type of design solutions). Design programs will be combined with each other and form an individualized, original design solution.

In the context of dialogical semiotic-interactive design solutions, an artistic image (artistic component) exists as a space that can change depending on the requirements of the project task. Its semiotic structure can expand, strengthen (if it is necessary to make the artistic component more active) or narrow, weaken (if it is necessary to focus on the functional and informational qualities of the design solution).

The space of the artistic component has a synthetic constructive essence. This means that one rhetorical trope is not formed separately from the other, they initially, potentially exist. For example, a metaphor is not formed separately from a metonymy, they initially exist as a metaphonym, but they can strengthen or weaken the influence of a particular trope on the final artistic image of a design decision ^[9]. In such a constructive context, the transition from one path to another occurs as organically as possible (naturally), since the construction takes place at the deep level of individual semiotic signs and the connections between them.

The influence of tools and materials on the semiotic and interactive qualities of design solutions. Semiotic-interactive methodology involves creating and working with a design solution in reactive-interactive and dialog-interactive forms. The methodology is focused on the use of various design programs that allow you to create semiotic components of different levels of complexity and edit them by changing individual characteristics.

For example, in a dialog form, a communicator (a customer, a representative of a synthetic role) can set a request: to draw a line; change the shape to a more elongated one; fill the shape with a gradient from red to blue; form a three-dimensional image with three light sources; transform the technique of execution of a specific component; integrate the created design solution (for example, illustrations) in a certain type of integrated design solution (website, banner, animated video, infographics, etc.); creation of interactive elements (menus, buttons, links); formation of links between interactive elements, etc. At the same time, at each stage of interaction, reactive (request — result) or dialogical (choice of several options or answer to clarifying questions) forms of interaction may appear ^[13].

On the one hand, such a reactive-dialog interaction is similar to the process of creating and editing a design solution, in which there are no tools of digital graphic editors directly, in the traditional, explicitly presented form (brush, pen, pencil, scissors, ruler, etc.). On the other hand, attention should be paid not to the visual availability of tools and the reactive possibility of interaction with the visual and graphic components of the composition, and the instrumental result that is required to be obtained. Then the traditional visual-reactive intermediary tool turns out to be unnecessary or not always necessary. The emphasis is on the design-software-functional features of the toolkit, which in the context of the semiotic-interactive methodology becomes part of the design environment. Accordingly, each design program in the design environment is a component of a design solution, and, at the same time, one or another kind of simple or complex tool. In fact, there is a new kind of tool combined with the result — a tool-design-program (tool-component), a tool-design-solution (tool-product).

The influence of the design environment on the quality of a semiotic-interactive design solution

Semiotic-interactive design program design solutions are so closely related to the design environment that they cannot exist without a design environment.

Hyperconnectedness as an action story. In the context of a dialogical semiotic-interactive design solution, the history of actions is understood in a completely different way than it was at the previous stages of the development of graphic and communicative design environments. Here, each request of the customer's communicator (a representative of a synthetic role) or an artificially intelligent analyst becomes part of the design environment. Any interaction with the design environment is represented by semiotic means in the design environment and becomes part of it.

The traditional understanding of the history of actions, in which the communicator could return to the previous stage of artistic and design activity, is replaced by the hyperconnectedness of the design system. With hyperconnection, the communicator can go into any state of existence of a design solution, which is somehow predetermined by the connections between the components. This makes it possible to realize the possibility of a "smooth" transition from one design solution to another or another version of it, both for the design component and for the artistic one. For example, for an artistic component, this may be a hyperconnection realized by metaphonymy not only to specific components, a specific composition, but also for any other component of a potentially possible composition.

Hyperconnectedness as integrity. Hyperconnectedness leads to the emergence of the quality of the integrity of the design system. It assumes the possibility of obtaining any synthetic (synthesized) design solution within the boundaries of a generative design system by means of a certain set of design programs. Simply put, all components of a design system are potentially connected to all components by all kinds of connections.

Continuous change and development. The interaction of communicators (the customer, a representative of a synthetic role and an artificially intelligent agent) with the design environment and continuous monitoring of digital profiles of users/consumers determine the state of the design environment, which implies constant change and development. Each new request of the communicator, design program, design solution or their versions, leads to changes in the design environment by accumulating information and turning it into knowledge presented in a semiotic format. Based on this interrelated knowledge, the design system develops, "understanding" what other meaningful, rather than random, variable design solutions can exist.

The development of the design system also involves expansion (increase) by adding new design programs to existing ones. This process leads to the emergence of new connections between old and new design programs and their characteristics. New connections are new artistic and design paths that a communicator can follow in the process of working with a design system.

Conclusions. In the course of the research, it is shown that the semiotic-interactive methodology of creating a graphic and/or communicative design solution is implemented in the context of a dialogic communicative model. It involves continuous interaction of a human communicator and a design system (a designer-generator, a digital profile analyst) with a design solution, as well as continuous generation/modification of a design solution.

It is indicated that the expressive means of a semiotic-interactive design solution is a design program. Automated and artificially intelligent synthesis of such design programs, as well as traditional means of expression, allows you to obtain various design solutions. At the same time, design programs allow you to make the transition from one state of the design solution to another. There is a phenomenon of versioning of a design solution. The generative capabilities of automated and artificially intelligent design systems make it possible to obtain (generate) new versions of design solutions at high speed. This leads to a new kind of design solutions - potentially incomplete, in a situation of constant changes.

The versioning of design solutions (design programs) leads to constant elaboration of the stages of problematization, design and construction. These stages are implemented on an ongoing basis. In their context, the design and artistic component of the design program (design solutions) are also constantly being developed.

The project component, in the context of the problematization stage, assumes semiotic deconstruction (analytics) at the macro and micro levels. At the macro level, these are specific changes in structural organization (single simple and complex-constructive, simple serial and complex—constructive serial) design solutions, and generative qualities - (generated not changing, generated automatically changing, interactively generated). At the micro level, these are traditional means of expression (primary, secondary, means of harmonizing artistic form and composition), as well as semiotic deconstructive components: figures, signs, sign systems represented by semiotic plans of semantics, syntactics and pragmatics.

The artistic component, in the context of the problematization stage, presupposes semiotic deconstruction (analytics), which allows to weaken or strengthen the semantic field, the artistic component, suggesting an appropriate description of a rhetorical figure or trope.

In the context of the implementation of the design and construction stages, the design component of the design solution image is formed by universal combinatorial and specific design programs. The artistic one is represented by an organic synthesis of design programs of rhetorical tropes.

In the context of semiotic-interactive methodology, a design program as a representative of a design solution is at the same time a tool with which one can change certain characteristics or components of a design solution.

A semiotic-interactive design solution can exist only in the context of a digital generative design environment. This leads to the emergence of the phenomenon of hyperconnection of a design solution with a design environment, or rather, the existence of a design solution in a design environment. Hyperconnection defines a connection with any component of the design environment, thereby being part of something more than just the structure of a single design solution. This feature allows you to combine (artistic and design generation) of various components into all kinds of variable design solutions. Accordingly, it becomes possible to return to any state of the design solution, to any version of it. At the same time, the process of interaction with the design environment (through various requests) it is also preserved as an integral part of the design environment - a set of interrelated design programs. The design system is expanded by adding new design programs (invariant concepts), components and connections. Accordingly, a design solution is both a process, a solution, an experience, and part of a global design system.

Thus, the conceptual model of a semiotic-interactive design solution in the context of a semiotic-interactive methodology implemented in the conceptual-generative subdirection of modern graphic and communicative design assumes:

• interactive semiotic-interactive format for creating design solutions;
• versioning of design solutions based on the semiotic synthesis of design programs;
• semiotic deconstruction of design solutions at the macro and micro levels;
• semiotic synthesis of design and artistic design programs;
• application of design programs as tools-solutions;
• using the hyperconnected capabilities of the design environment: the history of actions, integrity and continuous change and development.