I’m cofounder of the semiotics-fueled branding consultancy SEMIOVOX, editor of the consultancy’s eponymous website, and I’m the “convenor” of SEMIOFEST SESSIONS. Here’s a round-up of what we’ve been doing for the past three months…

Also see: 1Q2023 | 2Q2023 | 3Q2023.

SEMIOTIC ANALYSIS

SEMIOVOX’s methodology provides insight and inspiration — to brand and organization strategy, marketing, design, innovation, and consumer insights teams, as well as to their agency partners — regarding the unspoken local/global “codes” that help shape perceptions of and guide behavior within product categories and/or sociocultural territories.

During 4Q2023, our projects included (but were not limited to) the following.

• COLA CODES. We analyzed the codes of the Cola category in two global markets, on behalf of a multinational beverage company. Positioning strategy and marketing optimization for multiple Cola brands, as well as Cola portfolio rationalization.

• MULTISENSORIAL CODES. On behalf of a multinational beverage company, we analyzed codes of multisensorial experience — covering multiple categories — in six markets including China, India, and Mexico. A combination of semiotic analysis and consumer research (which we conducted via our sister agency, Consumer Eyes). Marketing optimization across all channels, including pack design.

SEMIOFEST SESSIONS

I’m coordinator for SEMIOFEST SESSIONS, a series of online get-togethers — put on under the aegis of the Semiofest collective — intended not only to share best practices among, but to nurture collegiality and friendship within the global semio community.

Here’s the 4Q2023 SEMIOFEST SESSIONS lineup:

OCTOBER: SEMIOTICS & THE SCIENTIFIC METHOD. Session host Vijay Parthasarathy led a discussion — with Román Esqueda, Jamin Pelkey, and Hamsini Shivakumar — on the following questions. Does commercial semiotics lack scientific rigor? Is the approach too ad hoc? How should commercial semioticians counter perceived “expert” bias? What is the optimal balance to strike between “science” and “art”? Watch it here.

NOVEMBER: ANALYZING THE UNANALYZABLE. Session host Luca Marchetti asked Jean-François Augoyard, Tonino Griffero, and Colette Sensier to share their tools and methodologies for analyzing ambiances, atmospheres, sensory experiences, aesthetics, and other seemingly subjective phenomena. Watch it here.

Session planning for 1Q2024 is now underway. Stay tuned!

TEACHING

This semester, I co-taught (with Monica Nelson) two sections of GRADUATE THESIS MAPPING & NARRATIVE I in the Rhode Island School of Design’s MID (Master of Industrial Design) program. I also did a semiotics training for Kate Dannessa’s Special Topic Design Studio (RISD ID); and I returned, in December, as a guest critic. Here’s my RISD faculty page.

SEMIOVOX.COM

I’m the editor here at SEMIOVOX, our consultancy’s eponymous website. Here’s what we published during 4Q2023.

MAKING SENSE WITH… is a series of Q&As dedicated to understanding what makes semioticians tick. I’ve asked my commercial-semiotics colleagues from around the world to answer a set of leading questions. Here’s the 4Q2023 lineup:

GIULIA CERIANI (Italy) | MAX MATUS (Mexico) | CLIO MEURER (Brazil) | SEEMA KHANWALKAR (India) | ROMÁN ESQUEDA (Mexico) | AIYANA GUNJAN (India) | MARTHA ARANGO (Sweden) | PAULINA GOCH-KENAWY (Poland) | SARAH JOHNSON (Canada).

Coming up in 1Q2024:

ANDREA BASUNTI (England) | HANNAH HOEL (New Zealand) | CARLOS SCOLARI (Spain) | STEFANIA GOGNA (Italy) | Coco Wu (Singapore/China) | & more.

COLOR CODEX is a 25-part series — the contributors to which are commercial semioticians from around the world — that explores the unexpected associations evoked for us by specific colors found in the material world. Here’s the 4Q2023 lineup:

Tim Spencer (England) on ELECTRO-EROTIC COBALT | William Liu (China) on PINING GREEN | Audrey Bartis (France) on KYOTO MOSS.

DECODER is a 25-part series — the contributors to which are commercial semioticians from around the world — that explores fictional semiotician-esque action as depicted in books, movies, TV shows, etc. Here’s the 4Q2023 lineup:

Adelina Vaca (Mexico) on ARRIVAL | William Liu (China) on A.I. ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE | Tim Spencer (England) on VURT | Ramona Lyons (USA) on BABEL-17 | Rachel Lawes on NICE WORK.

Coming up in 1Q2024:

Alfredo Troncoso (Mexico) on THE ODYSSEY | Gabriela Pedranti (Spain) on MUSIC BOX | Charles Leech (Canada) on PATTERN RECOGNITION | Lucia Laurent-Neva (England) on LESSONS IN CHEMISTRY | Whitney Dunlap-Fowler (USA) on THE GIVER | & more.

SEMIOVOX continues to offer glimpses into various audits we’ve done via installments in the long-running series CODE-X. Series installments from 4Q2023 include:

TAKE CHARGE: CHARGING UP | EARLY TO RISE | GETTING IN GEAR | ADVENTURE PREP | LONG VIEW | SPIRITUAL TEST. BREAK FREE: MOUNTAIN MAN | BACK TO BASICS | ON THE ROAD | SHEDDING INHIBITIONS | REBEL TRIBE | STOP BEING SERIOUS | BREATHE DEEP. EVOLVE: UNDER THE STARS | GO FORTH | OPEN YOUR MIND. & more.

MIT PRESS: RADIUM AGE

I’m the founding editor of the MIT Press’s RADIUM AGE proto-sf reissue series. During 4Q2023, we sent the following Spring 2024 titles to press.

• THE INHUMANS AND OTHER STORIES: A SELECTION OF BENGALI SCIENCE FICTION, edited and translated by Bodhisattva Chattopadhyay. The first English translation of a cult science fiction favorite by Hemendra Kumar Roy, one of the giants of early Bangla literature, and other sf stories from the colonial period in India. “A genuine moment of science fiction’s arrival in interwar Bengal.” — Anindita Banerjee. Coming March 12.
• Charlotte Haldane’s MAN’S WORLD, introduced by Philippa Levine. In a eugenics-driven future society, will one young woman’s defiance make a difference? “The whole of human relations are regulated by science in this book, and the process appears to be successful and quite inhuman.” — The Spectator (1926). Coming March 12.

More RADIUM AGE series updates: 2022 | 1Q2023 | 2Q2023 | 3Q2023 | 4Q2023.

HILOBROW

HILOBROW is SEMIOVOX’s sister website. Here are a few semio- and cultural analysis-related series and posts from 4Q2024.

During 4Q2023, at HILOBROW, I edited STOOGE YOUR ENTHUSIASM — a series of 25 essays, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of proto-punk records from the Sixties (1964–1973). Here’s a sampling of the STOOGE lineup:

Mandy Keifetz on The Trashmen’s SURFIN’ BIRD | Nicholas Rombes on Yoko Ono’s MOVE ON FAST | David Cantwell on ? and the Mysterians’ 96 TEARS | James Parker on The Modern Lovers’ SHE CRACKED | Lynn Peril on The Pleasure Seekers’ WHAT A WAY TO DIE | Lucy Sante on The Count Five’s PSYCHOTIC REACTION | Jonathan Lethem on The Monkees’ YOUR AUNTIE GRIZELDA | & more.

I’ve continued to add new installments in SCHEMATIZING, a series via which I’m attempting to depict the intellectual and emotional highs and lows of developing a semiotic schema.

SEMIOPUNK is an irregular series dedicated to surfacing examples (and predecessors) of the sf subgenre that HILOBROW was the first to name “semiopunk.” Here’s a sampling of the 4Q2023 lineup:

A VOYAGE TO ARCTURUS | THE MAN WITH SIX SENSES | THE SPACE MERCHANTS | ODD JOHN | & more.

More HILOBROW updates: 1Q2023 | 2Q2023 | 3Q2023 | 4Q2023 | 1Q2024 SNEAK PEEK.