[[alternative]]The Role of Images and Symbols in Poster Designing

[[abstract]]Since the beginning of human life in the universe, humans have learnt to understand the surrounding environment and matters surrounding them, the predictable and unpredictable phenomena, such as what food are edible, what animals are dangerous, what kind of weather bodes rain, etc., for environmental adaptation and life preservation purposes. Humans learnt to control what they understood and left what they don't understand to the hands of the spiri- tual being. They gradually invented gadgets and things to make life easier, used sounds to communicate with their peers, as well as tattooed their bodies with status symbols and images that empowered them with strength. As life progressed, each object gradually began to have meaning to these humans. Let us take for instance the significance of a deer to the primitive people. It has edible meat, fast legs, beautifully printed skin that could provide warmth to the body, and dangerous antlers. Hence the deer signified food, speed, beauty, clo-thing, glory, and danger, etc. In the cave wall drawings, the deer was a symbol of a prayer for food or personal wealth. How- ever, as humans accumulated more living experiences and civilization developed the mean- ings of images took a change. For instance, the deer on a Valentine's card signifies love, but the deer sign beside a suburban road means watch out for animals. In posters, the deer also stopped symbolizing food or wealth, a deer on a poster calls for the protection of endangered species. It is quite apparent that the symbolic meaning of objects is representative of life, it ch- anges with time, people and other factors. Sometimes, these symbols would gradually beco- me forgotten, but sometimes, they become internationally recognized symbols. Hence, the paper shall delve into the characteristics of object symbols. How object becomes a poster image, how to expand the width and depth of an image symbol, how they come to signify the meaning they portray, and so forth. Findings of the study shall be used in actual poster crea- tion and future design education.