The CODE-X series catalogs a vast codex of source codes (aka “signs”) extracted from past audits.

The object of study in semiotics is not the signs but rather a general theory of signification; the goal of each “audit” is to build a model demonstrating how meaning is produced and received within a category or cultural territory. Signs on their own, therefore, only become truly revelatory and useful once we’ve sorted them into thematic complexes, and the complexes into codes, and the codes into a meaning map. We call this process “thick description”; the Code-X series is thin description.

“LUCID DREAM” NORM: Life can be a dream — where you get to invent all the rules.

“LUCID DREAM” FORMS: Fantastical contexts — stranger and more colorful than everyday life. People posed in odd postures — like sleepwalkers, perhaps. “Play it like Hermes.”

From a 2022 study of the US Luxury space — across categories.