Semiotic and design of communication: searching for the language of the marketplace

Abstract

In this paper we are considering in a semiotic point of view how four different categories of design disciplines are used to communicate, facilitate and, finally, make possible the exchanges of the products in a free market economy, especially in the consumer goods sector. Under the concept of Communication Design, we have gathered four crucial aspects: the Branding design, which is the first step to identify the products in the marketplace; the Packaging design which provides narratives about the identified products; the Product design, which enhances the packaging storytelling and provides new additional information for the consumers; the Commercial Environment design, both on the real as well as the virtual electronic levels, which is creating the best way for the receivers to take away comprehensive message from the senders about the object of the exchange. These complementary types of Design of Communication are the four pillars of a “strategy of the designation” of goods in the Marketplace, enabling both traders and consumers to enounce and perceive the competitive differences and advantages of making and selling products in the Global Supply’s ocean. We analyze each of these types of Communication Design, both on the plane of the expression –“signifier”- and on the plane of contents -“signified”- with a careful attention paid on how they can explain, and address, the marketing issues of the communication-mix, apart and beyond the advertising ones. In conclusion, the Design of communication is the very language of the Market, unveiling a homogeneous and unique instance of enunciation, linking producers and traders enunciators in the same “merchant semiotic”, building up the following significations: “what we have to tell, to enounce, in order to transform the objects into products and to exchange them at their market prices”.

Key words: communication design, semiotic, market, branding design.