M

Narrative by Martha Arango, Posted February 25, 2025

Photo courtesy of the author

The CASE FILE series — to which SEMIOVOX has invited our semiotician colleagues from around the world to contribute — shares memorable case studies via story telling.

Even after living in Sweden for 30 years, I’m thrilled every time I receive a new brief. The opportunity to discover new cultural aspects and meanings — not with the familiarity of a native, whose culture runs through their veins, but more like a wide-eyed alien arriving on a new planet — excites me.

The client was the largest and most noteworthy motorists’ association in Sweden, an organization deeply rooted in its past, which emerged as a result of drastic social changes. The brand was in need of a creative renaming and an updated design. The association had struggled to move forward, weighed down by its masculine traditions and conservative expressions, epitomized by its heavy name: Motormännen (The Motor Men). The task was to modernize the organization, to promote inclusion and diversity while preserving its 100-year history, in order not to alienate long-time members. A big challenge, to say the least!

So I imagined myself stepping into a symbolic DeLorean time machine in true Back to the Future fashion and began my journey through The Motor Men’s historical archives, gathering visuals from the 1920s and beyond. I arrived in the early 1920s. There, I felt an energetic spirit in the streets, which were occupied by a mixture of horse-drawn carriages and cars with a whopping 35,000 horsepower rolling on the left-hand side of the roads. The need for better roads, signage, and conditions for motorists laid the building blocks for the association.

Suddenly, I arrived in 1967 on a chaotic day at Kungsgatan in Stockholm, when finally, after 40 years of debate, the switch to right-hand traffic was made. This was a change the association had heavily influenced, while in the political arena, the left-wing Social Democratic Party held power. While in the ’60s, I experienced a time of great transformations — an era of openness, liberal values, gender equality, environmentalism, and individual freedom. It was also a time when safety became a major concern, and the association began advocating for the use of seat belts (the “M” belt).

While immersed in this era, I unexpectedly came across an image of two cars meeting on a beautiful countryside road, with a sign featuring the letter “M”. As I had already worked thoroughly on the semiotic analysis of the brand’s logo, I found a subtle connection between one of the key visual elements of the logo and the “M” traffic sign. What interested me most was that the road sign was labelled “meeting place.”

A wave of inspiration came over me as I caught sight of a creative path to the organization’s new name: M. The notion of “meeting place” signals soft, emotional, “feminine” values, and could balance the “masculine” rationality of the brand’s name and logo. It was a magical moment, for me — the spirit of the ’60s aligning with today’s cultural values: inclusion, diversity, and environmentalism (the Swedish word for environment, miljö, begins with “m”).

I felt a glimmer of pride when I saw the high level of semio-internalization of the outputs in the client’s press release:

The M mark stands for all the values that make the organization appealing. The red colour of the logo symbolizes passion, the three crowns show tradition and credibility and that we are a Swedish organization. The design of the logo that tapers upwards and the white border lines show a path that leads forward. The letter ‘M’ itself symbolizes not only Motor, but also Meeting place on the road. The organization thus becomes a meeting place for all of Sweden’s motorists.

My imaginary DeLorean journey was of great help. I could explore the brand’s history and witness its evolution through visuals. With my outsider’s perspective, I was able to discover a creative path for the brand’s future.

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