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?

MARK LEMON

My first ‘real’ job was as a pool lifeguard. The pool water was kept at a consistent temperature throughout the year and yet some people would always comment from one day to the next that that the water was either too hot or too cold. Over time I realised that it wasn’t actually the temperature of the water that mattered, but the relationship between the air temperature and that of the water. This sparked an awareness that the ‘meaning’ of something is often not contained within it, but built from its connections to other elements, and that the true nature of a thing is not as important as how we perceive it to be.

SEMIOVOX

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

MARK LEMON

I was studying English with Media Arts at the University of Plymouth and had a 1-week intro to Saussure as part of a module on critical theory. It really joined the dots on a lot of things I had found myself thinking about and I was hooked from there. As my studies included media, semiotics gave me a way to think about both film and literature as composed of equivalent units of “meaning”, and from that point onward I started to naïvely try to teach myself semiotics. I definitely went down some wrong avenues, but eventually my curiosity led me to the master’s programme in semiotics at the University of Tartu in Estonia, which opened up the world of semiotics even further to me.

SEMIOVOX

How did you find your own way to doing semiotics?

MARK LEMON

I was very conscious of my desire to progress into commercial semiotics during my last year at Tartu and chose my dissertation subject to be the semiotics of typography, as I thought that would have a strong applicability to the commercial challenges faced by brands and organisations.

Sadly, at the time the connections between academia and commercial semiotics were not strong, in fact arguably there was a certain wariness or scepticism of ‘academic’ semiotics from those practicing commercially. Luckily, after spending a year reaching out to every semiotics related consultancy I could find, Alex Gordon and the team at Sign Salad took a chance and were prepared to nurture me in the right direction; 10 years later, I’m still here.

SEMIOVOX

What are the most important attributes of a good semiotician?

MARK LEMON

Being prepared to let go of things you think you know. This may sound strange, but I really try to go into a project abandoning as much prior knowledge of the brand or space as possible. Become blank, then let the signs and symbols of the space guide you. I almost viscerally consider the signifiers impacting my body (how does this word feel? What about this shape? How heavy is this colour?) and try to unpack the feelings they cause and allow these to guide the analysis. It is of course impossible to remove all foreknowledge, but we should embrace working in categories we (initially) know very little about, as many consumers will also not have that knowledge and will be guided by their instinctual responses, creating meaning in the moment.

SEMIOVOX

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

MARK LEMON

• George Lakoff’s Don’t Think of an Elephant! In my practice I am increasingly focused on language analysis; there is the potential to add a lot of value here. The meaning of everyday words seems to be clear (we have dictionaries to consult after all!), so we don’t often question each other’s language use, but words have a profound capacity to communicate unintended, abstract, or subtly manipulative meanings. This book highlights the hidden power dynamics in seemingly ‘everyday’ language, and what can be done to reclaim this power. 
• Jakob von Uexküll’s A Foray into the Worlds of Animals and Humans. Written in the 1930s, this work of experimental biology offers a bridge between cultural semiotics, biosemiotics, and behavioural economics. A fascinating and easy-to-read work with lots of rich examples of perception and meaning-making from across the natural world.
• Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics. This really opened up my mind when I first read it, and I try to return to it when I get a chance. There are a lot of principles that Saussure identifies as being true for language (and sign systems in general) that can equally and easily be applied to brands.

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?

MARK LEMON

“Semiotics is the fundamental operating system through which we all access and navigate the world. Your customers are already unconsciously performing semiotic analysis of your brand. Wouldn’t you like to know what they see and why?”

SEMIOVOX

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

MARK LEMON

One of the key things I value about doing semiotics professionally is the variety of projects and the opportunity to draw links between seemingly distant categories, so I would never want to be on one project for too long, even if it was my favourite. It’s the interconnections that are where the really interesting things happen.

That said, we did do a long piece of work looking at decoding the stigma of gambling harms, and identifying positive language and imagery that can be used to reduce this stigma going forward. I am very proud of that project due to its ongoing capacity to alleviate suffering and really help people.

SEMIOVOX

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

MARK LEMON

I get concerned when I see apparently ‘AI-led’ approaches to semiotics, sidelining the role of human analysis. These approaches can mask the fundamental humanity of semiotics. Semiotics is not impartial, it is fundamentally partial and empathetic, and inherently about acknowledging and holding a plurality of interpretations, giving respect to each and then evaluating dispassionately. AI as a tool to help human understanding can be great, but as a replacement or shortcut instead of human understanding, no thanks.  

SEMIOVOX

Peirce or Saussure?

MARK LEMON

Tricky, but Saussure was my entry into this world and is who I return to more. There is a lot to love in the work of Peirce, but there’s no doubt unpacking it all is harder going. I also think that the dynamism of Peirce’s sign model is implicit in Saussure’s work, though not fully surfaced, making them not so different and more complementary than is often acknowledged.

SEMIOVOX

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

MARK LEMON

Building your knowledge of brands and culture is more important than theory. I don’t want to be dismissive of the background I have had in the more academic side, and the great tutors who have helped me, and I do believe theory adds value, but… the foundation of strong commercial semiotics work is always brand and cultural knowledge. You can do great commercial semiotics work without knowledge of theory; you can’t do great work without knowledge of brands and culture.

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Also see these global semio series: MAKING SENSE (Q&As) | SEMIOFEST SESSIONS (monthly mini-conferences) | COVID CODES | SEMIO OBJECTS | COLOR CODEX | DECODER (fictional semioticians) | CASE FILE | PHOTO OP | MEDIA DIET.