Analyzing American Commercial Design From Advertising Semiotics

As early as in the early20th century, consumers in the United States had already begun to attach great importance to symbolic value of products. At that time economy in the U.S. was full of prosperity, meanwhile modernism, futurism is prevalent. And consumers were seeking new products to meet their individual needs. In such circumstances, formalism whose nature is commercial came into being and flourishing. While commercial design applied to the production stimulated the more pursuit of the meaning of the right product.In fact, the history of American design throughout the20th century is the history of commercial design which emphasizes on "Form First, Function Second". And its core is "Planned Commodity Abolished System" which was established in the wave of consumerism in the mid-20th century. Under the domination of the highly developed commodity economy law, the European origin of the modernist credo "Form follows function" replaced by the U.S. commercial design principle of "Form follows the market". At this period, U.S. consumption showed a significant symbolic consumption characteristic, and the collusion of the advertising and commercial design also contributed to the boom of symbolic consumption.In this study, Baudrillard’s symbolic consumption theory as a backbone, combined with semiotics, advertising, art design theory, systematically described the production of symbol mechanism of the commercial design, and revealed the role function of the commercial design to enterprises and the market in the consumer society.At the same time, this study takes commercial design which advocates for the "Form Follows the Market" as a mainstream design approach in the consumer society environment. Meanwhile, it analyzes the relationship among the consumer society, the symbol of the design market demand and commercial design. This study takes "Planned Commodity Abolished System" as the core, together with the cases of American automobile design and advertising design in the mid-20th century to discuss the process of the commercial design manipulating symbols to achieve the purpose of profit sales.Finally, this study critically reflects on the negative impact which the commercial design may bring to society. And it explores how design maintains self-discipline and concerns for human values rang in the tide of commercialization as a social construction of power.