Metaphors: look beneath the surface

Metaphors are, therefore, key in conveying ideas through established common concepts, and they are essential easing tools for the learning process. Nevertheless, to become effective vehicles, metaphors require thorough discernment and insight from both communication act intervenients, i.e., the sender and the receiver of the message. This notion conflicts with the current paradigm of a world where human attention spans are assumed short and straightforward communication seems to become a norm: “Make it fast and readily understandable!”. But are we underestimating our brains?

Metaphors: a superior realm of cognition

When thinking about the first groupings of hunter-gatherers around the fire under starry skies, we can only imagine moments of sharing food and tales about everyday events. Sounds, gestures and rudimentary depictions of facts, to which finding an explanation was a mixture of elementary knowledge and belief, were the means of expression. What would these dialogues sound like? Were they actual dialogues? One thing is for sure: these were probably Mankind’s first think-tanks to understand the world around. Using the senses only, the perception of daily events piled up in human brains and allowed memories and reasoning to start taking shape. As ages went on, Men’s social nature fuelled the need to communicate, be understood, and to reason the world around, aiming to progress and evolve as a community. The urge to pass on the legacy of experiences, knowledge and a general understanding of life and reality grew past generations through a particularly powerful vehicle which is language. Language, as a structured expression of thought, enables communication through commonly understandable discourse. It’s at the base of oral tradition, the most ancient form of sharing acquired knowledge and identity.

“Oral tradition, also called orality, the first and still most widespread mode of human communication. Far more than “just talking,” oral tradition refers to a dynamic and highly diverse oral-aural medium for evolving, storing, and transmitting knowledge, art, and ideas. (…)” [1]

Despite the undeniable role played by literacy, oral tradition is the common denominator to all societies, cultures and ages on this planet. This learning and teaching tool for grasping existence in its several aspects has fostered human capacity to discern through experience and logic. The ability to identify, define and conceptualise ideas and notions upon cognitive comprehension and then coherently derive to perceptible metaphors, allowed Men to create mental constructions using parallelisms, analogies and mental images. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary, a metaphor is:

“a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (…)” [2]

Today we may classify metaphors as figures of speech, but their meaning and value go way beyond. The moment Men unlocked metaphors’ power, it spurred imagination and elevated humans to a superior realm of cognition. Our ability to extrapolate things as they are and understand them by means of another opened a new channel to communicate ideas and achieve important evolutionary breakthroughs.

“Metaphor is not just a matter of language, it is a matter of thought reflected in language.” By Lakoff, George and Mark Johnson [3]

Humans have thrived through millennia because they have defied their self-expression in order to find a way of conveying each own understanding of things in a discernible way to others, articulating apparently disconnected concepts to make sense of ideas. This is what communication is about. Being successful in communicating has been crucial not only for the survival of the species but also to its qualitative evolution as a collective, capable of moulding its environment and adapting its own condition.

Metaphors are catalysts for creative communication

One of the principles associated with metaphor is the effectiveness of the analogy it contains – the comparison between one thing and the other, frequently aiming to explain or extrapolate an idea. This effect has relevant results when you need to communicate that idea or concept, and you want to place a specific thought in one’s mind because the essence of the metaphor transcends the simple concept of analogy. As Douglas Hofstadter said:

“Every concept we have is essentiality nothing but a tightly packaged bundle of analogies… all we do when we think is to move fluidly from concept to concept – in other words, to leap from on analogy-bundler to another.” [4,5]

Hofstadter claims that our ability to recognise and understand metaphorical thinking evolves with age. Our cognitive range enlarges with experience and enriches the source from which we extract references to process the implicit analogies within metaphors. According to the author:

“All of this is due to chunking, and I speculate that babies are to life as novice players are to the games they are learning — they simply lack the experience that allows understanding (or even perceiving) of large structures, and so nothing above a rather low level of abstraction gets perceived at all, let alone remembered in later years. As one grows older, however, one’s chunks grow in size and in number, and consequently one automatically starts to perceive and to frame ever larger events and constellations of events (…)” [4,5]

Metaphors are, therefore, not only a result of experience, perception and reasoning but also a product of our individual characteristics, such as age, culture or primary language. We build constellations of concepts that we articulate to make sense of reality whenever we receive input from the outside, be it sensory or of a more abstract nature. Our understanding of metaphors may vary in complexity or allude to specific situations, aspects or even emotions and feelings.

Communicating through metaphors is an intricate exercise of matching thoughts between the sender and the message receiver. That is because of the complexity of perception between individuals. Or as Hofstadter puts it:

“I pack my mental goods down into tight, neat bundles, I load them as carefully as I can into the metaphor truck of language, it drives from my brain to yours, and then you unpack. What a metaphor for communication!”

Heinz is one of the oldest and most recognised multinationals in the food industry, selling numerous products easily recognisable to consumers. Aware of this reputation that precedes the brand, Heinz often bets on advertising that focuses on emphasising the characteristics of its products at the sensory level, using intelligent visual metaphors which are simultaneously easily perceived by the consumer. (Ads by McCann Erickson, 2007)

To everyone doing creative work, either freelancing or through a creative agency: it is becoming increasingly relevant that we bear in mind all the nuances embedded in metaphors. To regulate and process thoughts, we must be aware of the secret power that lies under the words, phrases or images we will evoke to explain something. We must understand the context in which we are communicating so that we can control and use the power of the metaphor to suit the needs of the project.

Being savvy of the context, also implies that we have to know our audience, i.e., we have to know if a particular public is equipped with the cognitive framework to understand the metaphor we’re using, including social aspects, cultural background or average age. On the other hand, we must pay attention not to distort the metaphor, under the penalty of confusing our audience. The analogy has to be precise, so that the meaning we want to transmit flows straightforwardly, reinforcing the core message that needs to be delivered. Embodying the metaphor and minding our language is crucial to get to the message’s point.

In Metaphors We Live By, authors George Lakoff and Mark Johnson observe how metaphors are so installed in our subconscious that we use them every day in our thinking, acting and as a means to communicate. They talk about the importance of the metaphor in many different perspectives: 

“Moreover, metaphor is typically viewed as characteristic of language alone, a matter of words rather than thought or action (…) We have found, on the contrary, that metaphor is pervasive in everyday life, not just in language but in thought and action.” [6]

Creative thinking is one field where conceptual metaphors have thrived and contributed more significantly to human communication’s richness. The power of analogy fuels our expanded perception and our cognitive ability to link and bundle a network of concepts, opening doors for an upper level of complex reasoning and enhanced problem-solving breakthroughs.

Why Metaphorical Thinking Matters in the Design World? 

Metaphors are a powerful tool for communication, and they play a critical role in the world of visual design. Even though unconsciously, designers structure their thinking, arrange their creative process and execute their work through metaphors. The use of semiosis is inherently embedded in the designer’s work process, from the most simple tasks to the most far-fetched outcomes. For example, many everyday tools like the symbols representing the pencil tool or the settings tool are visual metaphors for settings and objects themselves, clearly showing how certain practical visual concepts have their meaning so profoundly imprinted in every mind.

Every designer’s work greatly relies upon the savvy use of adequate metaphors, which analogies intelligently communicate something that may resemble, allude or mimic the known reality. An interesting example of this, in the UI/UX area, was the emergence of skeuomorphism in the early days of interface design, as a literal use of visual metaphors. Macmillan Dictionary describes this type of design as:

“…a new development of an earlier concept which is embellished by some of the characteristic, recognisable features of the original. These features serve no functional purpose, but are there simply to add the idea of familiarity, making the item resemble earlier forms of the same object or idea.” [7]

Skeuomorphism was born in response to the need to bring the digital experience closer to reality. Apple was the first company to master this concept and successfully apply it in the early 90s. Skeuomorphism facilitated people’s adaptation to technology, allowing users to learn the operating system’s functionalities through visual analogies and metaphors applied to the shortcuts, buttons, and menus. Microsoft followed Apple’s example in this creative solution that used the metaphor to solve a problem. In the first half of the 2010s decade, mainly driven by Google, we witnessed the emergence of flat design, fully replacing skeuomorphism. Despite the higher level of abstraction and simplified form of visual representation of flat design, it still retains some underlying notions of the former style.

Visual design is a fundamental branch of communication, especially in today’s marketing and advertising world. However, we must acknowledge that design as a term encompasses a much more comprehensive field range. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary [8], the term design has a vast number of meanings, from which we highlight the following:

• to create, fashion, execute or construct according to plan
• to devise for a specific function or end
• deliberate purposive planning
• a plan or protocol for carrying out or accomplishing something (such as a scientific experiment)
• the arrangement of elements or details in a product or work of art
• the creative art of executing aesthetic or functional designs

It’s very clear that the principles herein include purpose and plan combined in mental dialectics through which we arrange the pieces of the puzzle in order to complete it. This means that the concept of design can be observed as a methodology that can be applied to several different fields. We identify a problem we want to solve or define a purpose we want to achieve. We access the context in which it occurs, catalogue our resources and obstacles, and outline a plan to achieve the desired result. This can be the basis for tackling specific problems in every knowledge sphere. Many creative agencies do it, and the results from that approach will be as richer as the ability to use metaphorical thinking in the creative process – the whole cognitive process gains from it, especially the goal-oriented strategic planning stage. Metaphorical thinking not only allows us to access multiple bundles of apparently unrelated concepts but also broadens the scope of our options to convey ideas and achieve comprehension. It unblocks possibilities for communication and widens the probability of succeeding because metaphors allow us to explore and present new perspectives starting from a straightforward concept or image. Strategically, metaphors are enabling tools that help to overcome contextual barriers or particularly delicate factors. They create realities for us and imprint meaning in the receiver’s brain by creating associations between new concepts and existing ones. 

Metaphors make it easier to comprehend and acknowledge concepts because they help us learn and retain information. Mastering its usage to convey messages means using appropriate analogies to place pictures, feelings and most importantly, experiences in other’s mind [9]. A magical, alchemic relationship happens between meaning and content amid metaphors’ many layers of meanings, fostering the acknowledgement of information in the learning process.

Are we drowning in immediacy?

Creative agencies and communication media have long understood that they can thrive upon this valuable tool as metaphors contribute to creating rich and meaningful content that can add value to its audience. When challenged with longer and more intricate, complex content, human minds expand their reasoning beyond the simple reaches of explicit concepts, images and messages, articulating facts, ideas and growing opinions instead. In some cases understanding a metaphor’s underlying message may occur almost immediately, as it does in the examples previously analysed. In other instances, it may require a certain degree of intellectual elaboration, and thus some more time. And in exceptional cases, imbued meanings may only be accessible after several iterations of analysis. Are we fully exploring the potential of visual metaphorical messages?

When it comes to content production, there’s a delicate balance at stake posed by the inherent constraints of the current paradigm of fast content and demand for quantitative, tangible results. Creative agencies are pressed to make flash content videos, “in-your-face” advertising campaigns and character-limited prosaic copywriting – all for the sake of capturing the user’s attention in the first seconds at the least cost possible. 

Where does this immediacy culture in communication and advertising come from? Though the causes are surely multi-factorial and probably related to a system of weird incentives, we can have a look at how, in 2015, the Consumer Insights team of Microsoft Canada surveyed around two thousand people to lead a study focused on the evolution of the average human attention span since 2000. The conclusion was that the average attention span has dropped to around eight seconds, lower than that of a goldfish.

“Microsoft theorised that the changes were a result of the brain’s ability to adapt and change itself over time, and a weaker attention span may be a side effect of evolving to a mobile Internet.” [10]

Although questionable [11], the interpretation of the results in this report set the marketing world on fire and ignited an explosion of fast and shallow frantic content production. Since then, it seems that a belief in the general public’s inability to pay attention for more extended periods became prevalent, leading to a boost of digital content tailored for fast consumption. The disproportionate evolution of short-form content through social media coupled with metrics meant to be proxies for performance (a.k.a. retaining users attention) has led us to a strange cacophonic world, whose collateral damages for our humanity are yet to be fully understood. There also seems to be widespread disbelief in people’s ability to understand complex messages and take an interest in long content formats. In reality, even if a decrease in people’s ability to focus would be observable, it’s fairly reasonable to wonder if this should be the cause or the consequence of the fast content bombardment people are exposed to in 2021, coupled with the rewarding system of dopamine hits triggered through digital platforms. Furthermore, how can we integrate this assumption/observation with the fact that we can clearly see an increasing interest in long-form content formats – have you heard of Joe Rogan’s podcast and how it has been gaining momentum over the last 10 years? Or the hype around 3-hour long Marvel movies?. Maybe we should question our assumptions.

Look beneath the surface

The communicational worlds’ immediacy culture describes the general audience by alleged short attention spans and lack of interest in denser topics. However, the history of our evolution as sentient beings demonstrates that human minds are gifted with the mechanisms that allow us a comprehensive understanding of higher levels of complexity. So, even though the current paradigm may be pulling the plug to the production of relevant and meaningful long content formats, the truth is that this type of content has an ever-growing, faithful and eager community of consumers.

https://vimeo.com/286852316

As easily seen in the previous example, creative communication resorting to strong metaphors conveys meaningful messages about complex topics in the social and economic fields, raising awareness of fundamental problems and fostering dialogue in society while contributing positively to our intellectual growth both as individuals and as a civilisation. 

As creative people, in marketing, branding, communication or advertising, shouldn’t we foster the upgrading of the human collective mind?