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.

Rankweil (Austria)…

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?

KATRIN HORN

As a child, I lived in and through books. I read anything I could get my hands on, and became interested in working out the inner rules of the various “book-worlds”: their settings, plots, characters — and understanding different cultures through the lifeworlds of the characters. What made sense for characters in one book-world was not part of the characters’ everyday pattern of life in another.

I majored in Art History, and I’m convinced that this is the best preparation for commercial semiotics. You’re trained to detect hidden patterns, understand symbols, and make sense of a work of art through knowledge of its context: the artist, their environment, their place in the history of their medium.

SEMIOVOX

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

KATRIN HORN

I came into contact with [British semiotician] Greg Rowland, who somehow recognized that I had a semiotic “heart” — before I knew it myself. He assigned me my first project, which put me on the track to doing this for a living. I ended up doing a lot of projects as a freelancer for Greg, as well as for other smart semioticians (some of whom have been profiled in this series). I was attracted by the never-ending diversity of brands and topics. Every project is unique.

SEMIOVOX

How did you find your own way to doing semiotics?

KATRIN HORN

I worked for years as a freelancer, doing both semiotics and qualitative research — while also teaching university courses. These days , I work for [the global consultancy] Human8, focused on qualitative research. I employ a variety of tools, semiotics one of them. My fascination with cultural patterns is enduring.

SEMIOVOX

What are the most important attributes of a good semiotician?

KATRIN HORN

• You must have a detective’s mind: Seeing what is beneath the surface and going unnoticed; and following the signs towards deeper meaning.
• You must think laterally: Making connections where others see separate phenomena; and connecting myths, symbols, history, popular culture, language, and so much more.
• You must be very convincing: Semiotics remains a niche methodology, and you constantly need to explain it. 😉

SEMIOVOX

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

KATRIN HORN

Daniel Chandler’s Semiotics: The Basics. Chandler provides a useful and accessible overview of the most important thinking in semiotics.

Martyn J. Lee’s The Consumer Society Reader compiles some of the most influential theories of consumerism… so this collection counts for two books. Goods are symbols that consumers use to communicate, as we learn from Douglas and Isherwood’s “The Uses of Goods,” for example, or Veblen’s “Conspicuous Consumption,” or Bourdieu’s “Introduction to Distinction.” Commercial semiotics is a methodology for analyzing these symbolic goods.

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?

KATRIN HORN

“Culture is the basis and foundation of everything. Consumers can say — from within their personal lifeworld — why something makes sense, feels natural or weird to them. These are valuable insights, but consumers cannot discern the deep underlying patterns that give form to their lifeworld. Semiotics is a methodology that surfaces these patterns, thus putting things into context.”

Going back to my fascination with book-worlds, I sometimes put it this way: “Consumers live within a ‘book,’ but they can only tell you about its plot. The semiotician can tell you about the book’s themes, style, and historical context.”

SEMIOVOX

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

KATRIN HORN

My favorite projects are those that span multiple global markets. I never stop finding it fascinating how the same concept is best expressed, depending on a country’s marketing context, history, and pop culture, by tapping into different cultural meanings. I’ve particularly enjoyed working on projects that track long-term social and cultural shifts — for example, I collaborated on a 2021 project for Greenpeace that was dedicated to the “myths” of Big Meat’s marketing. I was grateful to work with other talented semioticians; and we were all grateful to work on a project that could potentially have a positive impact in the world.

SEMIOVOX

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

KATRIN HORN

Semiotics is sometimes hard to sell because the impact of culture is overlooked or deemed inconsequential. And also because clients find it difficult to trust the process; semiotics is treated like the “voodoo” part of qualitative research. This mistrust is especially frustrating when you understand that most commercial semioticians can boast of not only a deep knowledge of their culture, but in many cases a solid theoretical and/or academic background too.

SEMIOVOX

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

KATRIN HORN

Learn another language and dive deep into that culture. Be curious and open-minded. Even if you don’t end up in semiotics you will find some other use for what you’ve learned. I promise that it will be a worthwhile effort.

MAKING SENSE series: MARTHA ARANGO (Sweden) | MACIEJ BIEDZIŃSKI (Poland) | BECKS COLLINS (England) | WHITNEY DUNLAP-FOWLER (USA) | IVÁN ISLAS (Mexico) | WILLIAM LIU (China) | SÓNIA MARQUES (Portugal) | CHIRAG MEDIRATTA (India / Canada) | SERDAR PAKTIN (Turkey / England) | MARIA PAPANTHYMOU (Greece / Russia) | XIMENA TOBI (Argentina) | & many more.

Also see these series: COVID CODES | SEMIO OBJECTS | MAKING SENSE | COLOR CODEX