Graphic Design And National Identity

National Identity is a ubiquitous concept in modern society.As an essential sociological concept,the invisibility of this subject is its most impressive and powerful characteristic.Acting invisibly for more than 400 years,National Identity is a cultural construction,a sense of belonging that links individuals to a specific space or territory.This thesis explores the connection between National Identity and Graphic Design,proposing a framework where Design act as a tool for nation-building processes.We introduce Axiology,Personhood,and Acknowledgment.These three new concepts transform National Identity ideas into graphic features and lay out the groundwork for visual analysis of graphic artifacts and their archival.Using these concepts,a method for cataloging public-interest advertisement signs was proposed.The catalog register includes informational,graphic,and symbolic content,such as location,color dominance,and style of the message.To validate this framework,we collect information on how Chinese people and foreigners living in China react to public-interest advertisement signs and their graphic features.The results suggest that when analyzed as symbolic content,National Identity has the same functions as the graphic elements of Visual Literacy.The results also suggest that foreigners also present National Identity ideas and feelings towards their host nation,as they often recognize themselves as the receptors of the visual messages contained in the street signs.