Each exhibit can be considered a complex sign, one such sign among many that inhabit a "semiotic space" of all possible signs of that type. Each such sign was (we must presume) deliberately chosen by someone as an appropriate way of representing certain information. We do not usually know exactly what semiotic space the source information was chosen from, but we can plausibly infer that it must at least have certain properties, and that these properties should be preserved by the representing sign.

But amazingly often, representations are poorly, or at least suboptimally, designed. This zoo consists of a selection of representations chosen from the real world that in some way are less than optimal. The "NEXT" button below will start you on a tour of the zoo, and the "HOME" button will take you back to the zoo's homepage. In subsequent exhibits, a "PREV" button will take you back to the previous exhibit, and the "EXPL" button will provide an explanation of the exhibit (sorry, these are not yet available). Please enjoy yourself! Comments are very welcome!