Images, diagrams and metaphors: hypoicons in the context of Peirce’s 66- fold classification of signs

In his 1903 Syllabus, Charles S. Peirce makes a distinction between icons and iconic signs, or hypoicons, and briefly introduces a division of the last ones into images, diagrams and metaphors. Peirce scholars have tried to make better sense of those concepts by understanding iconic signs in the context of the 10 classes of signs described in the same Syllabus. We will argue, however, that the three kinds of hypoicons can better be understood in the context of Peirce’s 66 classes of signs. We analyze examples of hypoicons taken from the field of information design, describing them in the framework of the 66 classes, and discuss the consequences of those descriptions to the debate about the order of determination of the 10 trichotomies that form those classes.