Logos!

While discussing Ellen Seiter's, "Semiotics and Television" we discussed how meanings were created within signs.   Charles pierce stated there were 3 types: symbols, icons, and indexes.  In class, we talked about an icon like the signs on bathroom doors, and how we know immediately one room is for woman and the others for men just because one outline has a skirt and one doesn't.  But why?  We, as a human race, collectively agreed on this. 

This reminded me a lot of product logos.  When you see a swoosh, you think Nike.  When you see a little white bird on a blue background you know you're on twitter.  They created an entire game, that became very popular on the app store, where you see a logo and you have to figure out what product it's for.  So why do we know that the apple that has a bite out of it is an icon for Mac products? We just do.  Through advertising, it has been jammed in our head so many times that we can't see it differently.  We collectively agreed subconsciously that these icons were going to mean these products.