Forrest Gump. Dir. Robert Zemeckis. By Eric Roth. Perf. Tom Hanks, Robin Wright, Gary Sinise, Sally Field, and Mykelti Williamson. Paramount Pictures, 1994. DVD.
In this snapshot from the 1994 film Forrest Gump, both the image of the man holding the yellow smiley-face t-shirt and the smiley-face itself can be considered iconic signs. By definition, an iconic sign bears resemblance to the thing it is referencing. Therefore, many photographs can be considered iconic. The smiley-face on the t-shirt the man is holding is another example of an icon. It represents the face of a happy person, the upturned mouth making its message clear to a viewer. Although it is very simplified, we can understand the icon to represent a smiling face.
Richters, Linda. Rainbows and Rain Clouds. 2006. United States.
Indexical signs can be defined as samples of what they represent, instead of direct depictions. A rainbow can be considered an indexical sign because one can gather from it that it has rained recently. Though the rainbow looks nothing like rain itself, we can logically come to the conclusion that it has rained when a rainbow is present.
Because these symbols have been used since the Renaissance period, I feel it is not appropriate to credit a particular person for this image. The two standard gender symbols are derived from astrological signs and were first used to mark the effective sex of plants by Carolus Linnaeus in 1751.
The symbols that denote male and female gender are symbolic signs. These abstract depictions of biological sex do not resemble their subjects in the least, but are well known signifiers. The symbols have since been manipulated and recreated to represent the transgendered and have been combined to represent sexual orientation.
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