On Facebook, LinkedIn, personal websites, and press releases, prosumers “brand” themselves through profiles, posts, images, symbols, signs, words, names etc. This “personal branding” is done to “identify” and “differentiate” users from each other, and semiotics is a science that is often applied to decode advertising and branding. However, this research takes an opposite approach by using semiotic theory to encode a personal brand, through the application of advertising tools and techniques that are often used to create brands.
This research explores the concept that designers and art directors can be empowered to create more effective design if they apply semiotic theory and semiotic observations to construct and encode their design projects.