The word vignette has several meanings, depending on the context.

Literature

In theatre and script writing, vignettes are short, impressionistic scenes that focus on one moment or give one impression about a character, an idea or a setting. This type of scene is more common in recent postmodern theater, where adherence to the conventions of theatrical structure and story development are jettisoned. It is particularly influenced by contemporary notions of a scene as shown in film, video and television scripting. Postmodern theatre is a recent phenomenon in world theatre, coming as it does out of the postmodern philosophy that originated in Europe in the 1960s. ...

Unlike the traditional scene in a play, the vignette is not strictly linked in with a sequential plot development but establishes meaning through loose symbolic or linguistic connection to other vignettes or scenes. Vignettes are the literary equivalent of a snapshot, often incomplete or fragmentary.

The use of vignettes is suited to plays in which theme, image, emotion and character are more important than narrative, though this doesn't mean that a vignette is out of place in a more narrative play.

Photography, optics, and graphic design

Main article: Vignetting

In the visual arts, vignetting is a loss in clarity towards the corners and sides of an image (for example brightening, darkening, or blurring). The effect is sometimes used intentionally, for instance in photographic portraits. In photography (other than for these special effects) vignetting is usually unintentional, and is often caused by optical limitations of the lens. Clarity to the corners of a photograph is one of the features of high-end optics. In photography vignetting refer to a reduction in image brightness in the image periphery compared to the image center. ... A camera. ... Roman-Egyptian funeral portrait of a young boy A portrait is a painting, photograph, or other artistic representation of a person. ... A lens. ... Photographic lens The zoom lens of the Canon Elph A photographic lens (or more correctly, objective) is an optical lens used in conjunction with a camera body and mechanism to make images of objects either on photographic film or on other media capable of storing an image chemically or electronically. ...

In graphic arts and printing, a vignette design usually incorporates a color gradation.

Research

In research, vignette means a short story, used in surveys. Research is an active, diligent, and systematic process of inquiry in order to discover, interpret and/or revise facts. ... There are several uses of the word survey: // Kinds of surveys Statistical surveys are used in marketing and polling research. ...

Wrestling

In professional wrestling, the term vignette is usually used to describe any piece of video footage featuring characters or events which is shown to the audience for the purposes of entertainment or edification. In World Wrestling Entertainment, wrestlers rarely acknowledge that they are being filmed, forcing the viewer to "suspend disbelief" as to why a camera operator would be allowed to witness and record an intimate or secretive situation. Bruno Sammartino puts the pressure on Stan The Man Stasiak. ... World Wrestling Entertainment, Inc. ... Suspension of disbelief is a willingness of a reader or viewer to suspend his or her critical faculties to the extent of ignoring minor inconsistencies so as to enjoy a work of fiction. ...

European toll stickers

Vignettes are also the small, coloured stickers affixed to motor vehicles passing through motorways and motorroads in some European nations, such as Switzerland and Austria. The affixing of a Vignette on a motor vehicle indicates that the respective road toll has been paid. Vignettes are often valid for a year. It may also be a form of tax on the vehicles, even if the driver doesn't drive on motorways: by example the former French vignette, at the beginning (in the 1950s) for aged people. They had to be bought each year, in December, in any tobacconist. Their price depended of the power of the car. They are no longer in use. The German and Austrian autobahn sign The Swiss autobahn sign Autobahn (pronounced in IPA) is the German word for a major high-speed road confined to motor vehicles and having full control of access, similar to a motorway or freeway in English-speaking countries. ... Signpost to an Autostrasse (this one leads to the A1L motorroad leading out of central Zürich). ... The word toll has several meanings. ... A tax is a compulsory charge or other levy imposed on an individual or a legal entity by a state or a functional equivalent of a state (e. ... The Autoroute system in France consists largely of toll roads, except around large cities. ... // Events and trends The 1950s in Western society was marked with a sharp rise in the economy for the first time in almost 30 years and return to the 1920s-type consumer society built on credit and boom-times, as well as the the baby boom from returning GIs who... Look up December in Wiktionary, the free dictionary December is the twelfth and last month of the year in the Gregorian Calendar and one of seven Gregorian months with the length of 31 days. ... A small variety of cars, the most popular kind of automobile. ...

Software

In computing, Vignette is also the name of a commercial content management system, portal and collaboration tools company. http://www.vignette.com Originally, the word computing was synonymous with counting and calculating, and a science that deals with the original sense of computing mathematical calculations. ... ... A content management system (CMS) is a computer software system for organizing and facilitating collaborative creation of documents and other content. ...