Meaning Extraction, Design Translation, and Meaning Reproduction: Development Pathways for Cultural and Creative Products Derived from Classic Literature

In recent years, the development of cultural and creative products by publishing institutions has become an important means to connect readers, drive transformation, and create added value. Within the overall landscape of publishing-related cultural and creative products, the development of products derived from classic literary works offers distinctive value but also presents unique challenges. The key to its success lies in constructing an "open system of meaning," allowing consumers to co-produce meaning through consumption and use. Based on this central argument, this paper analyzes recent cases of cultural and creative products derived from classic literature through Saussurean semiotics and Hall's encoding-decoding theory, conceptualizing their development pathway as three progressive stages: meaning extraction, design translation, and meaning reproduction. It systematically analyzes the extraction pathways of cultural and creative elements from classic literature, the logic of design translation, and the mechanisms of dissemination and promotion, exploring how to transform the spiritual core of classic literature into cultural and creative products that possess cultural depth, aesthetic appeal, and market attractiveness. This framework not only provides a basis for publishing institutions to develop the value of classic IPs and build core competitiveness, but also offers theoretical reflections and practical approaches to the contemporary innovation and transmission of classic culture. The study argues that meaning extraction involves identifying translatable meaning units from literary texts, addressing the question of "what to extract from the classics." The five core dimensions of meaning extraction are the author, characters, scenes, memorable quotations, and style. Design translation addresses the question of "how to turn meaning into usable and perceptible products," requiring the re-encoding of abstract literary symbols through dimensions such as form and structure, color and graphics, materials and craftsmanship, and function and interaction, so as to transform them, via the language of design, into tangible products that both embody the spirit of the text and respond to contemporary aesthetic preferences. Meaning reproduction occurs after the product enters consumption and social dissemination, where consumers decode and re-encode based on their own experiences, gradually transforming individual meanings into shared meanings through sharing, interaction, and community identification, thereby elevating the cultural and creative product into a cultural symbol. Therefore, the role of publishing institutions should evolve accordingly. First, they should become builders of meaning ecosystems, extracting activatable cultural symbols from texts to provide a value core for cultural consumption. Second, they should also serve as guides of community culture, facilitating readers' cultural identity in meaning reproduction through narratives and interactions. More importantly, they should serve as organizers of new cultural production relationships, connecting classics with contemporary life, authors with readers, and texts with everyday experience, while continuously participating in the organization, framing, and feedback of meaning.