What makes a semiotician tick? SEMIOVOX’s Josh Glenn has invited his fellow practitioners in the field of commercial semiotics, from around the world, to answer a few revealing questions.

London…

SEMIOVOX

When you were a child/teen, how did your future fascination with symbols, cultural patterns, interpreting “texts,” and getting beneath the surface of daily life manifest itself?

NATASHA DELLISTON

There was a lot I recognised as ‘not-normal’ in my suburban town childhood: teenage hippie / communist / anarchist parents, months spent on road trips to Morocco in camper vans, two profoundly deaf grandparents — so consequently a signing household (we all learnt to sign before we could ‘speak’). Not one but two secret families on my grandparents’s side — one abandoned, one removed by the state — all later reunited in adulthood but clandestinely so… conducted in contraband code whenever my grandma was around. It was all very thrilling, but I picked up pretty early on that all the important stuff was happening at an unsaid / implied / hinted / coded and signed level…

SEMIOVOX

Describe your first encounter(s) with the theory and practice of semiotics.

NATASHA DELLISTON

My first official encounter was Barthes’ Mythologies at uni: a welcome break from Chaucer and Milton and a tantalising glimpse of freedom. (I didn’t understand much of it.)

In a work sense, Virginia Valentine and Monty Don taught me in what I’m guessing was an MRS course. It felt like an AA meeting for broken brand planners. My memory is one of relief, like my strange way of squinting at the world had a name. This was a proper ‘ology’ that got me out of Millward Brown trackers. (I’m not sure there was much that didn’t attract me at that point, if I’m honest).

SEMIOVOX

How did you find your own way to doing semiotics?

NATASHA DELLISTON

We had just launched a new branding and design agency in WPP and I asked Ginny to come in and train all of our planners. We worked together on a couple of projects, after that — I offered my planning services for free to get my semiotic mitts on anything and everything I could. I remember early chats with Malcolm Evans to explore how we might partner archetypal and sensory models with semiotics.  Mainly it was a case of simply doing it quietly in the background on my own planning briefs. Design is rather lovely like that — it’s already semiotics in action. Creatives and clients took to it very readily: there was no big sell involved. I commissioned external semiotics wherever I had the chance and budget, so got quite adept at taking the findings in a brief and execution. That made me fairly good at writing semiotic briefs, particularly as they relate to other research methodologies, and I hope (!) that picture of the end goal is something I bring to my own semiotics today.

SEMIOVOX

What are the most important attributes of a good semiotician?

NATASHA DELLISTON

Along with the usual list (open-minded, curious, eclectic), you need to be able to entertain thoughts that you yourself don’t agree with and be ready to admit to your own blindspots. Semiotics is about questioning your own perspectives and beliefs on a regular basis. So above all all else you need to be comfortable with uncertainty, contradiction, and change. 

You also need to be a strong storyteller and communicator. You could have the most mind-bending insight in the world, but if nobody understands it or knows what to do with it then it’s not much use…

SEMIOVOX

What three books about semiotics have you found the most useful and enlightening in your own work?

NATASHA DELLISTON

• Cultural Strategy by Douglas Holt. It’s an easy read with great brand examples, and I’m always giving my copies away to people.
• The Politics of Design by Ruben Pater. Because I like books with pictures and I mainly work on social change and NGO projects. 
• The Hidden Power of Advertising: How Low Involvement Processing Influences the Way We Choose Brands by Robert Heath. This was the book that really kickstarted all the design thinking we as an agency did around how brands live in brains and the role of sensory and subconscious markers.

SEMIOVOX

When someone asks you to describe what you do, what is your “elevator pitch”? How do you persuade a skeptical client to take a chance on using this tool?

NATASHA DELLISTON

If we’re talking one floor then I say that I help clients make and manage meaning. If I have a couple of extra floors I go on to say that we humans make meaning out of everything, that that happens very quickly at the subconscious and the body level, and we need to take the time to check in and make sure the meaning we’re offering is in tune with our strategy, culture, values, and audience needs.

SEMIOVOX

What specific sorts of semiotics-driven projects do you find to be the most enjoyable and rewarding?

NATASHA DELLISTON

There are two polar-opposite projects I love, so I’m drinking my own medicine here in terms of being comfortable with contradiction. 

I love being able to do the semiotics and take it through to execution. We all like having something tangible to show for our work, and for me there is no greater joy than being able to sit with a brief and work with creatives, nudging ideas along, and to emerge with a piece of packaging or a brand identity to show at the end of it. Being able to trace that beautiful strategic golden thread from the semiotic insights to the final creative is very, very satisfying. 

And I like fast, short, high-energy collaborative projects where we all have a quick run at something: deliver some thoughts, insights and opportunity spaces and crack open a big bottle of wine come Friday night after offering it up to the gods…

SEMIOVOX

What frustrates you about how semiotics is practiced and/or perceived, right now?

NATASHA DELLISTON

It can still feel a little opaque and lofty, although that seems to be changing by the day — thanks to the generosity / openness of the semio community. I’d like to see more crowd-sourced thinking from adjacent communities, especially marginalised groups. I’m thinking about the way the Design Council runs sprints for social change.

SEMIOVOX

Peirce or Saussure?

NATASHA DELLISTON

I’m afraid I use, abuse, and bastardise both to suit my ends. I’m no purist!

SEMIOVOX

What advice would you give to a young person interested in this sort of work?

NATASHA DELLISTON

Read John Berger’s Ways of Seeing, join the Semiotic Thinking Group [via LinkedIn]. Do a course if you can afford it. Take photos. Keep a journal of all the weird stuff you see. Listen to stand-up. Call a semiotician up and ask them if you can offer a perspective…

And I would say: Be your own version of a semiotician. There is no one way or right way. We’re all good at different things and there is always room for another approach, perspective, or skillset.

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