I’m cofounder of the semiotics-fueled branding consultancy SEMIOVOX, and editor of the consultancy’s eponymous website. Here’s a round-up of what we’ve been doing during 3Q2026.

Also see: SEMIOVOX 2022 | SEMIOVOX 2023 | SEMIOVOX 2024 | SEMIOVOX 2025 | SEMIOVOX 1Q2026 | SEMIOVOX 2Q2026.

SEMIOVOX.COM

I’m the editor here at SEMIOVOX, our consultancy’s eponymous website. Here’s what we published during 3Q2026.

“The most satisfying projects are those where meaning is operating everywhere at once.”

Enya Autumn Trenholm-Jensen

MAKING SENSE is an ongoing 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 3Q2026 lineup:

KRZYSZTOF MUSZYŃSKI (Poland) | FRU BEKEFI (England) | ENYA AUTUMN TRENHOLM-JENSEN (Germany) | MAITREYEE PATKI (Singapore) | EMMA GUEVARA (Germany) | KATALIN WUNDKE (Germany) | KLARA DE WIT (Australia) | NIMESH NAMBIAR (UAE) | AKVILE AMADA SATAITE (Mexico).

Coming in 4Q2026:

ANNE-FLORE MAMAN LARRAUFIE (France) | GIACOMO FESTI (Italy) | SVITLANA KHOMENKO (Ukraine) | GABRIELA SERPA ROYO (England) | MEGAN BOURNER-POWELL (England).

After having published the 150th installment in this series, which will happen in mid-November, the MAKING SENSE series will go on hiatus. All installments here.

“I find I still carry a fondness for that grey.”

Carla Moss

The COLOR CODEX series — to which we have invited our commercial / applied semiotician colleagues from around the world to contribute — explores the unexpected associations evoked for each of us by specific colors found in the material world. Vol. 1 was published in 2023–24. We kicked off Vol. 2 in June. Here’s the 3Q2026 lineup:

Rajan Luthra (India) on AMALTAS YELLOW | Carla Moss (Austria) on EASTERN BLOC GREY | Dora Jurd de Girancourt (France) on JACARANDA PURPLE | Alexandra Ncube (England) on PMDD RED | Katrin Horn (Austria) on PIER BLUE | Ľudmila Lackova Bennett (Czech Republic) on BARBIE PINK | Onaiza Drabu (India) on MOHARRAM BLACK | Jamin Pelkey (Canada) on KELLS CORAL | Manar R. El Wahsh (Canada) on FATIMID GOLD.

Coming in 4Q2026:

Gianlluca Simi (Brazil) on ELLE IN BLUE | Jiakun Wang (China) on GEN Z PURPLE | Mariane Cara (Brazil) on IPANEMA GOLDGLOW | Eugene Gorny (Thailand) on FLAMBOYANT RED | Gemma Jones (Netherlands) on IN-BETWEEN INDIGO | Cathy Maisano (Australia) on AUSTRALIAN SUNSET | Victoria Gerstman (Scotland) on CALPOL PURPLE | & more.

“Every hypothesis that Joe and his teammates posit, every interpretation of how this semiosphere works, is frustrated.”

UBIK

SEMIOPUNK is a series I’m writing, cross-posted and revised from our sister site HILOBROW, which is dedicated to surfacing examples of the sf subgenre that one might call “semiopunk.” Here’s the 3Q2026 lineup:

UBIK | SNOW CRASH | PATTERN RECOGNITION.

Coming in 4Q2026:

COSMONAUT KEEP | DOOM PATROL | GRAVITY’S RAINBOW

“For those of us who crave the off-version of your basic commercial reality, this is all just great.”

Helene Silverman

KERN YOUR ENTHUSIASM is another series cross-posted from our sister site HILOBROW. Twenty-five creatives were each asked to discuss one of their favorite typefaces. We wrapped this series up in 3Q2026. These were its final installments:

Steve Price on SCREAM QUEEN | Alissa Walker on CHICAGO | Helene Silverman on CHINESE SHIPPING BOX | Tim Spencer on SHATTER | Jessamyn West on COMIC SANS | Whitney Trettien on WILKINS’S REAL CHARACTER | Cintra Wilson on HERMÈS vs. HOTDOG | Jacob Covey on GOTHAM.

“Suave antifa films that were also rollicking entertainment were, briefly, the state of the art.”

Mark Kingwell

CAHUN YOUR ENTHUSIASM

This series, on 25 of our favorite anti-fascist cultural productions — it’s cross-posted from HILOBROW — will kick off in October. Here’s the 4Q2026 lineup:

Mark Kingwell on ONCE UPON A HONEYMOON | Lynn Peril on ZAZOUS | Judith Zissman on DIE GEDANKEN SIND FREI | Annie Nocenti on MEDIUM COOL | Mike Watt on FASCIST | William Nericcio on LALO ALCARAZ | Josh Glenn on THE LADY VANISHES | & others.

Also see: SEMIOVOX updates from 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 1Q2026 | 2Q2026.

MIT PRESS: RADIUM AGE

I’m the founding editor of the MIT Press’s RADIUM AGE proto-sf reissue series. In August, we published an abridged edition of Olaf Stapledon’s Last and First Men (originally p. 1930), with a new Introduction by Matthew De Abaitua.

“The boldest imaginings of Mr. Wells pale before the dreams of Mr. Stapledon.” — Oxford Magazine (1930)

“Last and First Men is a seminal work of cosmological SF — a philosophical examination of the future evolution of humanity, inspirational to Arthur C. Clarke and so many of Stapledon’s successors. Great to see it included in The MIT Press’s Radium Age series.” — Charles Stross.

“The story is epic in every sense of the word.” — Transfer Orbit

“The rise, fall, and rebirth of humanity.” — LitHub

A version of Matthew De Abaitua’s introductory essay, titled “The Man Who Saw Humanity From Two Billion Years Away,” was published on 8/24/26 by the MIT Press Reader. Excerpt:

Last and First Men is not progressive. Civilizations rise and fall, the tide of progress advances and retreats, variants upon the theme of humanity strike up and diminish — what endures of humanity is not spirit in the Christian sense so much as, in the philosophy of the Fifth Men, “a work of tragic art.” The Fifth Men regarded the cosmos as an aesthetic unity in four dimensions. Art focuses aspects of the cosmos, making it apprehensible even if its complexity means that it can never be entirely known.

During 3Q2026 we also sent to press the following Spring 2027 title:

Mothership Rising: Afrofuturism in the Radium Age (anthology), edited and afterword by Lisa Yaszek, introduced by Nisi Shawl. A mind-expanding anthology of early Black science fiction — the visionary origins of Afrofuturism. Gathers early twentieth-century visions — utopian and dystopian alike — from Pauline Hopkins, W. E. B. Du Bois, Jean Toomer, Langston Hughes, Marita Bonner, George S. Schuyler, and others. See this title at the MIT Press website.

More exciting installments in this series, including anthologies and collections, some of them currently being translated into English, are in the works. For the latest updates, keep an eye on this page.

More RADIUM AGE series updates: 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 1Q2026 | 2Q2026 | 3Q2026.

HILOBROW

HILOBROW is SEMIOVOX’s sister website. Here are a few semio- and cultural analysis-related series and posts from 3Q2026.

The dancer’s “egocentric” movements produce a network of radial motion; the moving body becomes a sort of machine that shapes the space around it. This diagram allows us to glimpse the spatial perception experienced by the performer, his or her perception of volume. Although the dancer may appear to move at liberty, to me this work suggests that there are only so many options available.

from the DIAGRAMMATIC SUBLIME installment.

EMANATIONS is a new series of cultural research-and-analysis posts for which I’ve conducted research for the past few years. Each installment features 10 of my favorite examples of Radium Age-era fine art that explore a particular proto-sf-adjacent theme. Here’s the 3Q2026 EMANATIONS lineup:

DEHUMANIZATION: MECHANIZATION. DISENCHANTMENT / UNSEEN FORCES: ATOMIC SUBLIME | CHROMATIC SUBLIME | DIAGRAMMATIC SUBLIME | GEOPHYSICAL SUBLIME | RE-ENCHANTMENT | SCIENCE FANTASY | STOP MOTION.

Coming in 4Q2026:

UTOPIA / DYSTOPIA: BIG ROCK CANDY MOUNTAIN | BRAVE NEW WORLD | FROM EACH ACCORDING TO HIS ABILITIES. FAR-OUT MATHEMATICS / FOURTH DIMENSION: GEOMETRICAL UTOPIA | MATHEMATICAL SUBLIME | & more.

“The things I read really quickly but also relentlessly: classic Golden Age mystery novels, often consumed via omnibus editions on the iPad late at night before bed, by anglosphere writers like Margery Allingham, Ngaio Marsh, Edmund Crispin, P.D. James, and also mystery and detective fiction writers in translation such as Georges Simenon. I read them as if they were candy bars: gobbling at top speed.”

Drew Daniel (of Matmos)

Inspired by the success of the MEDIA DIET series here at SEMIOVOX in 2025, in 2026 we kicked off of a series exploring the media “input” of a group of people — HILOBROW’s friends and contributors — whose “output” we admire. Here’s a sampling of the MEDIA DIET lineup for 3Q2026:

DEB CHACHRA | GORDON DAHLQUIST | JOE ALTERIO | VANESSA BERRY | MICHAEL GRASSO | DREW DANIEL | JIM HANAS | DEVIN McKINNEY | RANI SOM | ANNALEE NEWITZ | MARC WEIDENBAUM | & others.

Coming in 4Q2026:

LISA JANE PERSKY | DAN FOX | SUSANNAH BRESLIN | RAMONA LYONS | JESSAMYN WEST | STEPHANIE BURT | DAVID CANTWELL | & others.

More HILOBROW updates: 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 1Q2026 | 2Q2026 | 3Q2026.

On to 4Q2026…