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Maldonado's List of visual/verbal figures as interpreted by Gui Bonsiepe:

Analogy
A verbal equasion is transposed onto the visual realm with semantically equivalent signs.

Metonymy
A verbally specified meaning is related to another meaning that establishes a thematical preference, f.i. cause instead of effect, instrument instead of result, maker instead of product.

Synecdote (pars pro toto)
A part indicates the whole.

Specification
A visual sign is accompanied by a minimum of text, to make it understandable and to narrow it semanticaly. Often a firm name is used to indicate the product.

Merging
A visual sign is concentrated into a 'Supersign' by virtue of its formal properties. The syntactic entanglement suggests a semantic link.

Parallel
Visual and verbal signs refer to the same meaning.

Associative mediation
Out of a series of verbal signs one is taken to illustrate the associative context it is knitted into.

Metaphoric inversion
The tension between primary and secundary meaning is used to the extent that visual signs illustrate the original meaning by taking it literally.

Typogram
The meaning of typographical signs is is illustrated with the same signs. The text is quasi short-circuited with the typographical signs.

Understatement
A verbal understatement is visually represented.

Overstatement
A meaning is visualised through signs whos content exceed the usual measure.

Visual-verbal negation
The meaning of a word sequence is illustrated by its visual opposite.

Visual-verbal equasion
Two meanings are compared visually through verbal mediation.

Exemplifying
A verbally indicated meaning is demonstrated visually.
 

(from: 'Visuelle Rhetorik', in: Gui Bonsiepe, Interface - Design neu begreifen, Bollmann Verlag, Mannheim, 1996 (translation MB))
 
 
 

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