In the previous series, we assumed that iconic visual expression tends toward naturalistic or perceptually continuous forms. Yet in many media — especially children’s picture books — images vary in their degree of iconicity, ranging from highly naturalistic to schematic, exaggerated, or abstracted. Understanding this continuum illuminates how stylisation modulates immersion, attention, and metaphorical potential.
1. Iconicity as a Continuum
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High iconicity / naturalistic: Forms closely resemble perceptual reality; the viewer recognises objects, figures, and scenes as continuous with everyday perception.
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Moderate iconicity / stylised: Forms simplify or exaggerate perceptual features, emphasising expressive or relational qualities over exact realism.
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Low iconicity / schematic or abstracted: Forms prioritise symbolic, structural, or affective cues; resemblance to real-world perception is minimal, but relational and evaluative meaning can be intensified.
This continuum allows us to situate different visual strategies and examine their semiotic effects systematically.
2. Stylisation and Immersion
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Naturalistic images promote immersion through perceptual continuity, enabling the viewer to “inhabit” the scene.
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Stylised images may heighten emotional or cognitive engagement by foregrounding salient features (e.g., exaggerating facial expressions to convey affect).
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Schematic/abstracted images encourage imaginative or interpretive participation, prompting the viewer to project meaning into minimal or symbolic forms.
Systemically, stylisation modulates the semiotic principle of immersion: it affects how the viewer is positioned and co-constitutes meaning within the perceptual field.
3. Stylisation and Temporality
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Simplified or exaggerated forms can emphasise motion, gesture, or transformation more clearly than highly detailed naturalistic depictions.
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Temporal cues in schematic images may be compressed or intensified, generating narrative and affective flow that is perceptually immediate but conceptually abstracted.
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Naturalistic images often distribute temporal attention across detailed scenes, requiring the viewer to integrate multiple cues sequentially.
Thus, stylisation shapes the rhythm and focus of temporal alignment within the visual semiotic field.
4. Stylisation and Multimodality
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Colour choices may be more symbolic or affectively charged in stylised or abstracted forms.
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Spatial exaggeration (scale, perspective) can enhance relational or narrative significance.
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Motion lines, simplified gesture, or symbolic shapes in schematic images guide attention and amplify metaphorical interpretation.
In this sense, iconicity and multimodality are mutually constraining: the degree of realism or abstraction in shape informs how colour, motion, and spatial cues generate meaning.
5. Analytic Implications
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Stylisation is not a deficit relative to naturalism; it is a strategic semiotic choice that modulates immersion, relational positioning, and evaluative potential.
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The iconicity continuum allows us to predict how images engage viewers differently — perceptually, emotionally, and cognitively.
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In children’s media, lower iconicity often heightens clarity of narrative, affect, or metaphorical meaning, demonstrating the flexibility of the relational semiotic field.
By conceptualising iconicity as a continuum, we can extend the framework of Seeing Meaning to encompass a wider variety of visual strategies, showing how naturalistic, stylised, and schematic forms each actualise relational meaning in distinctive ways.
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