Semiotics of the identity of the Saudi National Day slogan during the reign of King Salman bin Abdulaziz

This research analyzes the semiotics of the visual identity of the Saudi National Day during the reign of King Salman bin Abdulaziz. It aims to analyze the semantic and value dimensions associated with Saudi society and its cultural and civilizational contextual components through the structural elements of the logo: the visual and iconic on the one hand, and the linguistic on the other. The investigation also measures the transformations and changes in the structure of the logo and its advertising production that have evolved over the past nine years. The research utilized semiotic analysis of the logo to explore the interpretive and semantic dimensions of these symbols through their material and existential relationship with other elements in the logo, and by linking them to the contextual usages specific to the Saudi society, as well as their effectiveness in reinforcing values within the Saudi cultural framework. The findings yielded that the logos for Saudi National Day have diversified and progressed in their production, becoming a form of media and advertising discourse. Each logo contains value-based dimensions that are repeated in some logos, most notably belonging, ambition, peace, and development. Furthermore, the level of communication in the National Day logos is high, as they are built from compositional and linguistic elements with a collective, homogeneous structure and semantics. Each logo forms a visual system with linguistic and compositional counterparts that correspond to real symbols in the Saudi social and cultural context. The logos have an informative, media-oriented dimension targeting the external future, as well as a value-based, societal dimension for the future within the nation.