I enjoyed reading this week’s piece that looked at metonymy, conceptual metaphors and blending across a three-panel stirps from a campaign by the Chicago. With metonymy, simple addition or reduction of elements can convey a lot of information to the reading. For example, reducing one person indicates that this person is no longer part of the group without saying that. Another interesting concept is the use of backgromation to elicit information from previous panels in the strips. With metaphor, one could use simple icons or symbols to indicate a conceptual metaphor, for example, using the metaphor of hot fluid in a container to indicate a state of restlessness and disruption.

Figure: Einstien hair to indicate smart!

The reduction could also be used metaphorically; for example, show a person chained to something then removing that person from the picture portrays a metaphor of freedom. Metaphor and metonymy could be achieved through blending in which different mental models are mixed together to signal meaning—for example, using metaphoric iconicity, blending iconic images to describe and scene metaphorically, as shown in the figure with Einstien hair.