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.

Edinburgh…

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?

VICTORIA GERSTMAN

I grew up in Miami, but my mother is from a small town in the North of England and we spent every summer there. Moving between two such different places gave me an early sensitivity to cultural contrast. I vividly remember “settling in” via a trip to the supermarket to stock up on the snacks we had missed most. Even now, the first thing I do when I land somewhere new is go to the grocery store.

My sister and I also used to attend school for a few weeks with our English friends thanks to the difference in school calendars. It’s something we looked forward to and, looking back, I think those experiences were early experiments in understanding difference.

I’ve also always been obsessed with language, especially slang and idioms. I still love the thrill of figuring out what people really mean when they speak… especially when they think they’re being clear.

SEMIOVOX

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

VICTORIA GERSTMAN

As an undergrad at Columbia, I studied East Asian Languages and Anthropology, with a particular focus on postmodernism in Japan. I was reading a lot of Jameson and Murakami and watching Japanese cinema, including both Kurosawas (Akira and Kiyoshi). Semiotics kept emerging as a throughline, sometimes explicitly, often indirectly.

During that same time, I was volunteering with the Margaret Mead Film Festival at the American Museum of Natural History, where I had the chance to meet and speak with ethnographic filmmakers. They got me interested in the way symbols obscure and reveal, and how the ordinary can stand in for something deeply charged.

SEMIOVOX

How did you find your own way to doing semiotics?

VICTORIA GERSTMAN

After finishing my undergraduate degree at Columbia in 2008, I moved to Japan for a year to teach English. When I returned to New York, I got my first “real” job, working in advertising. A few years later, I decided to go back to school and pursued a Master’s degree at the University of Chicago, where I had a formal re-introduction to semiotics surrounded by Structuralists.

I thought that would be the end of my academic journey, but after relocating to London and spending some time back in media and advertising, I felt the pull again and in 2014 I began a PhD program at the University of Nottingham.

It was during my doctoral studies that things started to converge. I began freelancing for a semiotics agency, and it quickly became clear that this work tapped into the same intellectual curiosity I loved about academia, but with a kind of agility and immediacy that really suited me. Once I submitted my thesis, I was lucky to have a role waiting for me. It was a relief to discover that I didn’t have to choose between deep thinking and real-world impact.

SEMIOVOX

What are the most important attributes of a good semiotician?

VICTORIA GERSTMAN

Curiosity, of course, but I’d also highlight adaptability and clarity — which are functions of applicability. In the commercial space, applicability matters. We need to be able to translate complex cultural patterns into insights that clients can use.

I also believe in flexibility. Sometimes the best approach is one that pairs semiotics with ethnography, trend work, or quantitative methods.

And finally, a commercial semiotician needs to be able to meet people where they are. Not everyone will instantly “get” semiotics, and that’s okay. Some clients become instant evangelists, others need a little time.

SEMIOVOX

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

VICTORIA GERSTMAN

Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics. This was the book that unlocked semiotics for me. The concept of the signifier and the signified fundamentally changed how I understand meaning.

Roland Barthes’ Mythologies. Barthes gave me permission to take popular culture seriously.

Walter Benjamin’s Illuminations. Benjamin isn’t technically semiotics canon but his writing on aura, reproducibility, and cultural memory is essential in my work.

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?

VICTORIA GERSTMAN

My short answer, ususally, is “I help brands make sense of culture so they can stay relevant.”

For clients who are skeptical, I start by asking where they’re feeling stuck. Often, they’re struggling to answer a business question using the tools or data they already have. I let them know there’s a whole untapped evidence base out there in the form of culture itself, and that semiotics offers a tried-and-tested way to make use of this evidence base.

SEMIOVOX

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

VICTORIA GERSTMAN

I’m drawn to topics that are treated as givens — like health, for example. It seems intuitive and innate, but “health” and what it means to “be healthy,” are incredibly context-dependent and culturally specific. Those projects offer a chance to reframe assumptions and surface insights that can be hugely impactful.

I also really enjoy working in the entertainment space. Media and culture exist in constant dialogue and contributing to that dynamic feels especially rewarding. Plus it takes me back to my media industry roots.

Finally, I especially love multi-market studies. I’m always eager to learn what’s shifting across and within markets, and how patterns intersect and diverge.

SEMIOVOX

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

VICTORIA GERSTMAN

I think semiotics is sometimes perceived as mysterious or impenetrable (and I think that we practitioners sometimes contribute to that mystique). There’s a certain “black box” reputation that I’d like to see shift. Semiotics is rigorous and grounded in theory, but it doesn’t need to be inaccessible.

And I’d love to see semiotics continue to move beyond its European roots, drawing more from global perspectives and traditions of meaning-making.

SEMIOVOX

Peirce or Saussure?

VICTORIA GERSTMAN

Saussure. I can actually remember the exact moment in a U Chicago seminar room when something clicked for me about the relationship between the signifier and the signified. Saussure changed how I understand communication, representation, and meaning.

SEMIOVOX

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

VICTORIA GERSTMAN

You’re probably already doing it. If you’re drawn to patterns, metaphors, tone shifts, or the way things are “coded,” then you’re already thinking semiotically.

It’s also worth remembering that semiotics is a learnable method. You don’t need to have studied it formally to begin doing it. Practice reading your environment with a semiotic lens, whether that’s ads, packaging, urban space, fashion… What meanings are being communicated by the symbols you observe? What assumptions are embedded in the choices made by brands? What feels innate in the world around you, but is actually constructed?

Finally, some of the best semioticians I know are also some of the kindest and most generous people, so don’t be nervous about getting involved. On that note, feel free to get in touch with me!

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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.