Stereotypes

Stereotypes are addressed by Mary Stewart in Chapter 8 of her book, Launching the Imagination | A Comprehensive Guide to Basic Design. Almost every idea that a person conceives is technically based upon some type of knowledge made available by the presence or absence of a stereotype. I realize the last sentence contains an abundance of subject matter, however Steward provides a fantastic example that portrays this idea. She makes the connection that the icon of a broken wine glass placed on shipping crates to indicate it's fragility, is an example of a stereotype (Stewart 162). We make the connection that the contents of a container are fragile. The anticipated idea of "broken glass" indicates the expectation that the viewer will make an inference about the content in the box that may or may not be glass, however it is clearly fragile. Past experiences of seeing broken glass and noting that glass is a fragile substance, then applying this notion to a completely separate entity, is an example of the stereotype at work. So supporting the claim I made earlier, its plausible that the words written in the color red on documents are important because we associate the color red with emergency responders and stop-signs, which would be another stereotype. Or, the depiction of a whale on any canvas makes the viewer think of the sea because a whale is associated with the sea regardless of the background on the canvas. Regardless, people make associations based on what they know, so many ideas are based on stereotypes.