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Semionaut Award

Announcing the $1000 Semionaut new writers’ award sponsored by Space Doctors.

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Contributors

Sophie Gomez

Sophie is a French semiotician and cultural analyst based in London. She studied semiotics and critical theory during her M Res in France and she holds a M Lit in Managing in the Creative Industries from the University of St Andrews in UK. Sophie is curious to understand the dialogue between brands, people, and culture in order to help sharpen strategy and drive innovative thinking.

London, UK

Gareth Lewis

Gareth Lewis works as a cultural and communications analyst for Space Doctors (Brighton, UK). His academic background is in English Literature and Philosophy, and he holds an MA in Sociology and Cultural Theory from the London School of Economics. Gareth specializes in using culture to help grow brands, sharpen strategy and drive new thinking. He has experience across all major categories. Gareth has also edited and had work published in a range of newspapers and magazines.

London, UK

Vivian Shi

Vivian Shi is Director of Insight at Wisdom Asia-Rising Sun Marketing & Research Consulting in Shanghai, China. She has extensive experience in the area of applied semiotics and cultural analysis, tracking cultural trends in China and analysing advertising, packaging and digital communications across a wide range of categories. Vivian combines her semiotic interests with direct day to day work with consumers.

Shanghai, China

Cathy Maisano

Cathy Maisano is a cultural and behavioural researcher, specialising in ethnography and semiotics. She has run her own freelance business called Cradle-Research in the UK where she has lived for ten and a half years. Now on her first ever ‘gap year’, she and her family have returned to Australia. ‘Getting under the skin of Down Under will be my daily pleasure!’

Sydney, Australia

Kristian Bankov

Kristian Bankov (b. 1970) is professor in semiotics, sociology of consumption and brand communication at New Bulgarian University. He is the head of the Southeast European Center for Semiotic Studies and director of the Sociosemiotic laboratory there. KB is the main organizer of the annual Early Fall School in Semiotics (EFSS) which takes place in Bulgaria, mostly in Sozopol, each September since 1995. He likes beer and football. For more information see Facebook.

Sofia, Bulgaria

Kourosh Newman-Zand

Kourosh is a graduate cultural analyst for Space Doctors. He graduated in Philosophy, Politics and Economics from the University of Warwick focusing on aesthetic theory. Fascinated by the emergent digital landscapes, music and literature, he's committed to translating his passions and research into brand strategy. He draws inspiration from his British grandfather who travelled to Iran in the 1960s to build roads and his Iranian grandfather who resisted the Shah in 1979.

Brighton, UK

Malcolm Evans

Malcolm Evans is 
a founding partner of culture & communications consultancy Space Doctors and a pioneer in applying semiotics to brand strategy and communication. Malcolm specializes in helping brands communicate more honestly and effectively in the context of today's dramatic changes in values, technologies and behaviours. Author of numerous articles, conference papers and Signifying Nothing, one of the first books to apply semiotic thinking to an understanding of Shakespeare’s work in its cultural contexts.

Brighton, UK

Thierry Mortier

thierry mortier is a belgian semiotic architect operating in the field of contemporary art. At the basis of his work lies his research into semiotic generation through semiotic satiation. Superimposing signs to construct signs of superposition, called noizuyo-e, pictures of the noisy world. ノイズ 世 絵. Currently he’s working on a visual representation of noisense (noise + sense), the semiotic architecture he believes semiosis dwells in. - more info on www.semiotic.tv

Ghent, Belgium

Hyaesook Yang

Hyaesook works for Korean design and culture magazine 'Cabinet' as a London coordinator & Editor. She worked for 8 years as a designer at a design museum in Seoul, Korea. Hyaesook is interested in space 'imaging' and 'language’ as a research tool to understand tacit consensus. She is personally looking into the potential of design along with thoughtful design thinking to help create increasingly positive futures. She is also a co-facilitator of the Metadesigners Open Network. Hyaesook studied on the visionary Design Futures MA at Goldsmiths College, University of London.

London, UK

Tom Lilley

Tom is a qualitative researcher turned brand strategist, with a particular interest in semiotics and co-creation as drivers of innovation. He worked for four years at Synovate, before moving to brand consultancy Sense Worldwide. A qualified sound engineer, Tom also runs an independent record label that revels in blurring the lines between fact and fiction. Tom holds a BA in Modern Languages and Literature from Oxford University.

London, UK

Edina Husanovic

Edina is a performance artist, curator and researcher, born in Bosnia and living between the UK and the Balkans. In her multidisciplinary art practice she addresses trauma and memory, and has exhibited internationally. Recently she has shown her performance piece Holy Jolie in London, Bosnia and Serbia to wide acclaim. She is a PhD candidate at Reading University, researching belly dance as a hybrid form and social practice in postcolonial and trans-national context.

UK, Balkans

Dan Holliday

Dan set up creative practice Not Actual Size back in 2007. The earlier part of his career included a stint as Head of PR at Sony Interactive Europe where he handled the Playstation launch, and 5 years as a board director at the global PR giant Hill & Knowlton where he ran the global Adidas, Carlsberg and Gillette business. He is also a regular speaker and judge on award juries for both the advertising and PR industries (including D&AD, and PR Week).

London, UK

Joshua Glenn

Joshua Glenn is an editor, publisher, and a freelance writer and semiologist. He's cofounder of the websites HiLobrow, Significant Objects, and Semionaut; and cofounder of HiLoBooks. In 2011, he produced and co-designed the iPhone app KER-PUNCH. He's written and edited several books, and is a former newspaper columnist and magazine editor. In the '90s he was co-producer of the DIY and online social networking website Tripod.com, and he published the zine Hermenaut. He's worked in commercial semiotics, as a US cultural coding expert, since 1999. He does business as KING MIXER, LLC.

Boston, USA

Paul Cobley

Paul Cobley is the author of a number of books, including Introducing Semiotics (illus. by Litza Jansz), the Routledge Companion to Semiotics (Routledge, 2009), and Realism for the 21st Century: A John Deely Reader (University of Scranton Press, 2009). He co-edits two journals, Subject Matters and Social Semiotics, and is associate editor of Cybernetics and Human Knowing. He is the co-series editor (with Kalevi Kull) of Semiotics, Communication and Cognition (Mouton de Gruyter).

London, UK

Sraboni Bhaduri

Sraboni began her career as a counselor and therapist 20years ago. She has followed her interest in people and contemporary culture through her work as a strategic planner in advertising and then as a brand consultant. Her current assignment is in the area of market research. Her educational background is in psychology and her doctoral dissertation is in the area of organizational culture and learning. She continues to nurture her interest in psychology and has trained in psychoanalysis.

New Delhi, India

Jo Peters

Jo Peters is a Planning Director at media agency, Carat, in London where she works on campaigns for international clients including adidas, Swatch and Philips. Jo has worked with media and brands for 20 years. Her career highlights include commissioning her filmmaking heroes to work for Sony, organizing a world tour of clubs with Levi’s and i-D magazine and, as The Scout at WPP’s Mindshare, running an international community identifying emerging cultural trends.

Brighton, UK

Jon Rattenbury

Jon is active as a musician and music teacher in the UK and enjoys playing and singing music in many styles. He recently performed minimalist composer Steve Reich's Electric Counterpoint during the Brighton Festival. Jon is also interested in musicology and the cultural context of music-making.

Brighton, UK

Rebecca Allen

Rebecca is co-founder of FrontierJapan, an independent research and innovation agency based in Yokohama. Hailing from Sydney, Australia she has been in Japan for 15+ years and is fluent in as many aspects of the language and culture as the mind cares to imagine. Her particular areas of expertise are in commercial semiotics, cultural insight and breaking trends, although she also makes a pretty mean sushi roll and is up with the best of them on early 90’s J-pop hits.

Yokohama, Japan

Lucia Neva

A founding partner of Visual Signo, Lucia is a graphic designer and anthropologist with deep expertise in the use and exploration of methodologies for the analysis of the visual through design principles and anthropological thinking. She has more than 10 years of experience as a graphic designer, semiotician, and researcher delivering cultural and design insight, semiotic strategies and research for companies in a wide range of sectors. Lucia has worked as a professor, researcher for research and marketing strategies agencies, semiotician, and independent graphic design consultant.

London, UK

Chris Arning

Chris specializes in semiotics and cultural insight. He has 10 years of international experience as a qualitative researcher and semiotician. He has a BA in History, an MA in International Relations and studied semiotics under Professor Marcel Danesi at University of Toronto. As Head of Semiotics at Flamingo Research he designed and led semiotics projects for brands as diverse as Pepsico, Pernod Ricard, O2, Manchester City FC and the World Gold Council. He is the author of two Semiotica papers and two ESOMAR papers and is founder and steward of the Linked In Semiotic Thinking Group.

London, UK

Myfanwy Jones

Myfanwy is a part of the generation of family historians emerging in UK. Brought up on small hill farm in Mid-Wales to age 18, she was educated in Oswestry, Shropshire, and at Liverpool University. Moved to London 1986 and worked in international IT marketing. Currently an award winning garden designer and restorer based in St Asaph, North Wales.

St Asaph, Wales

Thomas Wendt

Thomas Wendt is currently a digital and user experience strategist in New York City. He has worked and consulted for agencies, startups. and individuals throughout the world. Thomas is interested in how semiotics and consumer culture affect brand strategy, digital anthropology, and customer insights. Find him on Twitter or visit his website to get in touch. twitter.com/#!/thomas_wendt www.surroundingsignifiers.com

New York City,

Seema Khanwalkar

Seema Khanwalkar is an academic semiotician and a semiotic consultant in India. She enjoys interpreting contemporary shifts in Indian society and culture as they relate to food, urban living, advertising, films arts, architecture etc. - focusing on the semiotics of the contemporary traditions in India, contemporary art as narrative spaces and semiotics of architectural art, a continued interest since her doctoral research. She heads a one of its kind Master's program in Arts Journalism at CEPT University, in India.

Ahmedabad, India

Aiyana Gunjan

Aiyana has 16 years’ experience in the strategic planning function in the advertising industry (at Ogilvy and JWT, and as head of the planning function at Mudra, Bates and Dentsu). Her core strength lies in a consumer-centric approach to brand planning. She has worked with a wide range of global and local brands across product categories. She has also tracked the changing face of the Indian consumer, post liberalisation. She views semiotics as the ‘3D of research’ and has worked as an independent semiotician for several international projects. Art, culture and travel are her passions.

New Delhi, India

Noël Theodosiou

Noël is a facilitator and strategic marketer working in both the corporate and not-for-profit worlds. She is a keen follower of cultural change and its impact on how we express ideas and build meaningful relationships. Noël is the Director of her own consultancy, Luminous (www.luminous-ltd.com), serves as a Board Director of The Walden School, and is Co-Founder of Candied Thinking (http://candiedthinking.blogspot.com/), a network of sweet-natured, serious-minded people whose aim is to improve our society through better conversations.

London, UK

Marina Simakova

A qualitative researcher and semiotician, Marina is interested in contemporary Russian culture’s myths and metaphors, She is completing a PhD on the ethical dimension of the language & semiotics of otherness. Inspired by Plato's dialogues and Beckett's plays, Marina dreams of transforming the focus group into a new genre of sociological theatre. By getting rid of the one-way mirror she aims to kill three birds with one stone, achieving the goals of aesthetic pleasure, consumer knowledge and transparency.

Moscow, Russia

Kathryn Borel

Kathryn was born in 1979 in Toronto, the daughter of a hotelier. She has worked as a writer & broadcaster for a decade. She was founding producer of top-rated CBC national radio program Q. Her print journalism has appeared in the Guardian UK, the Globe & Mail, the Toronto Star, the National Post, the Walrus, Salon.com and Nerve.com, among others. Kathryn's first book, Corked, was a finalist for the Stephen Leacock Memorial Medal for Humour Writing, Canada's top humour writing prize. She currently lives in Los Angeles with her boyfriend and her existential dread.

Toronto, Canada

Oliver Litten

Oliver Litten is co-owner of Group Red, based in Hamburg and Berlin. A brand strategist, trends and innovation expert he was worked for leading agencies, including Interbrand and Added Value, and his client list includes Virgin, Levis, Apple, Beiersdorf, Pepsico/Lays, Nike, Procter & Gamble, GlaxoWellcome and Unilever. Oliver specializes in facilitating creative workshops and immersion experiences where clients come face to face with opinion formers.

Hamburg, Germany

Piyul Mukherjee

With over 20 yrs as a qualitative researcher mining insights for global clients, Piyul feels that she has lived in the eye of a hurricane, in the aftermath of globalization. Fascinated by larger changes in the Indian social fabric, she is now a doctoral student at IIT Bombay, studying ‘the decline of a city and its impact on women’. She also continues to enjoy working on projects for clients who are passionate about making the world a better place.

Mumbai, India

Habiba Allarakia

Habiba Allarakia has worked since the early 1990s in business and marketing research across diverse markets and categories, with 6 years in Western Europe, Central and Eastern Europe and the Middle East and over a decade in the Arabian Peninsula. Habiba was the first woman to work at Procter & Gamble Saudi Arabia, where she set up the now flourishing women’s office. Her key areas of expertise are strategy & initiative development, building brands & portfolios, consumer insight and market understanding. Habiba loves reading, the sea, travelling and discovery.

Jeddah, Saudi Arabia

Albena Todorova

Albena Todorova is currently at the New Bulgarian University in Sofia where an innovative semiotics offer includes courses on advertising & consumer culture. In 2009 she wrote a dissertation on Edgar Allan Poe in popular culture. Albena is now doing PhD research on Poe mythology & symbolism globally from Baudelaire through to Japanese mystery writer Edogawa Rampo, 60s horror movies, Lou Reed, Antony Hegarty, contemporary emo, manga & gaming subcultures and online interest groups.

Sofia, Bulgaria

Sandra Mardin

Sandra is a British Macedonian apprentice in the field of semiotics and cultural insight, fascinated with decoding communication, cultural innovation, identities and intercultural misunderstandings. She has so far completed a dissertation on theatrical performances of Shakespeare in Japan; researched the role of culture in English language teaching and conducted contrastive analysis of the English and Macedonian media discourse. After working for almost a decade in Skopje’s independent alternative radio station Kanal 103 and singing in several indie-pop bands, she moved to the UK where she continues to blog about music, contemporary design, innovation and cultural trends in her tumblr blog Lofidelica.

London, United Kingdom

Nick Asbury

Nick is a writer for branding and design, and one half of creative partnership Asbury & Asbury. Personal projects include Corpoetics, a collection of poems made by rearranging corporate copy; Pentone, the written equivalent of Pantone colour-matching system; and Mr Blog, a blog documenting all the ‘Mr’ shops on UK high streets. Nick was also one of the writers in the original Significant Objects project, conceived by Joshua Glenn and Rob Walker. Nick has a particular interest in brand names, slogans, language and poetry and writes for the design press, including Creative Review. http://www.asburyandasbury.com http://www.twitter.com/asburyandasbury

Manchester, UK

Louise Jolly

Based in Brighton and London, Louise works as a freelance semiotics analyst and copywriter. She began her career in 1996 as a trainee copywriter in recruitment advertising, before joining a creative start-up that promised much more fun. While experiencing at first hand the creative-industry boom of the late 90s, Louise also completed a PhD in French studies and taught at London University. It didn’t seem possible to keep up such a happily double existence until she discovered commercial semiotics – enabling her to apply theoretical thinking outside the institutional setting of academia.

Brighton, UK

Malex Salamanques

Malex specialises in semiotic thinking & hands-on design to optimise visual communication for brands. A pioneer in this field, she works at Space Doctors on design semiotics projects internationally & across categories. Malex has more than 12 years experience running projects from conceptualisation to actioning design, development and production for digital & printed media. She holds an MA in Design and Branding Strategy from Brunel University, London and a BA in Graphic Design & Visual Communication from Prodiseño, Venezuela's leading design School, where she taught Graphic Design until 2004.

Brighton, UK

Terry O'Gara

Terry O’Gara is an award winning independent music solutions consultant based in New York City. Of the new paradigm processes he helped develop and champion, Mix magazine wrote, they "may just portend to the future of all music production professionals." Since then, his insight into music and meaning have contributed to the successful delivery of thousands of audio assets for hundreds of brands, including AT&T, Disney, Guinness, HBO, Mastercard, McDonald’s, Nestle’s and Viacom.

New York, USA

Ajitesh Ghose

Ajitesh Ghose was born in 1987 in Vienna, Austria. He received his BSc(Hons) in Psychology from Royal Holloway, University of London and his MA in Cognitive Semiotics from Aarhus University (AU) in Denmark. During his studies he specialised in Neuroeconomics and Quantitative Semiotics. He has research experience in applied semiotics, visual semiotics, computational semiotics, and cognitive semiotics. As part of this he used eye-tracking and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). He now works as a Research Analyst with Harris Interactive.

London, UK

Arlene Tucker

Arlene Tucker is a Taiwanese American artist. Tucker received her Bachelors of Fine Arts from the Savannah College of Art & Design in Georgia, USA in May 2002. After school, her focus in film and painting led her to the Czech Republic where she worked on film productions and art. A new chapter in NYC found herself developing interactive products at a children’s toy company. Currently, she is working towards a Masters degree in Semiotics at Tartu University in Estonia.

Tartu, Estonia

Martha Arango

Martha Arango is a Colombian semiotician based in Sweden. MSc in Communication Sciences specialising in semiotics from the National University of Mexico. Experience working with qualitative research & semiotics in Mexico at INRA and Arango & Asociados. Later in Sweden at Demoskop & TNS-SIFO. Now working as consultant at Arango Semiotics and with Beyond Research. Semiotics projects for global clients including Unilever, Diageo, IKEA, Procter & Gamble. Guest lecturer at the University of Stockholm, Berghs School of Communication and The Royal institute of Technology in Sweden.

Stockholm, Sweden

Ute Rademacher

Ute Rademacher is a business psychologist, marketing-oriented semiotician and a certified business coach. She founded the agency COLIBRI Research in Hamburg, Germany, in 2007. Her passion is to marry the personal dedication of a small agency with the international perspective of a global network. In 2008, Ute was involved in WeJane’s global initiative to gather and decode Bag Stories from Stockholm to Shanghai.

Hamburg, Germany

Asunción Álvarez

Asunción Álvarez is a Founding Partner at Soluciones Semánticas, a communications consultancy specialising in the analysis and evaluation of business and brand discourse through the use of computational techniques. She holds a B.A. in Computational Linguistics and an M.A. in Cognitive Science from the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, as well as a Ph.D. in Philosophy from King’s College London.

Madrid, Spain

Hamsini Shivakumar

Director of Leapfrog Strategy Consulting, Hamsini Shivakumar is an accomplished brand strategist, researcher and communications thinker with over two decades of experience. Loves studying human nature, with its myriad nuances and contradictions. Has a particular interest in developing new frameworks for addressing classic and new age branding issues. Published a WPP-Atticus award winning paper on global branding. Is a regular contributor to international and local publications.

New Delhi, India

Jonathan Willett

Freelance researcher and writer who publishes mainly on creative and visual culture. PhD in Art & Design from Nottingham Trent University 2008. Lectures at local universities & colleges in Nottingham and has worked as exhibitions co-ordinator at QUAD Visual Arts and Media Centre, Derby. Current work explores the possibilities of creative ecologies that emphasize a 'materialist semiotic' of non-linguistic entities - materials, objects, behaviours - informed by the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, Felix Guattari and Manuel De Landa.

Nottingham, UK

Charles Leech

Charles Leech is a partner at ABM Research (www.abm-research.com). Since his PhD in Applied Semiotics from QUT, he’s been an active commercial semiotician for over 13 years, working on projects for clients from AB-InBev to Nestlé to Unilever. Charles has helped ABM deliver profound, penetrating analyses on everything from tampons in Sao Paolo to light beer in Xiamen. He’s also worked tirelessly on commercial semiotics evangelism to clients, marketing and research organizations, and pretty much anyone else who’ll listen.

Toronto, Canada

John Murphy

A cultural anthropologist ,with an MA(Distinction) in Visual Culture , John joins Truth from the semiotic specialist agency Space Doctors. He has trawled amongst others the world of pet food, home DIY and fabric conditioners with a semiotic lens. Formerly a sound engineer to the irreproachable Van Morrison and co-designer of ‘Treepee’ , a multi-functional children's toy. John is a member of the newly formed global network of semioticians, Semiotic Thinking Group.

London, UK

Mark Irving

Mark Irving is a writer and critical analyst. He works with clients on articulating mission, organisational story, spatial narratives, and audience engagement across different media. He is expert in handling editorial content, tone-of-voice and visual culture. He lectures in cultural theory at Central Saint Martins College of Art & Design and the London College of Communication. Mark has been an arts journalist writing on the visual arts, design & architecture for the leading UK newspapers since 1994. He has scripted and presented arts television documentaries and is an author.

London, UK

Jeff Thompson

Jeff Thompson is a nonverbal communication specialist and is currently conducting research on nonverbal communication towards a PhD at Griffith University Law School. Jeff is also a New York City Police Department (NYPD) detective as well as an internationally certified mediator. Read more on Jeff’s research at www.NonverbalPhD.com and his mediation work at www.EnjoyMediation.com. Additionally, you can follow him on twitter: @NonverbalPhD.

NYC/Brisbane, USA/Australia

Heta Trivedi

Heta Trivedi, an Architect by profession and a Bharatanatyam dancer by passion, is currently pursuing her last semester in Masters in Arts Journalism (MAJ) at CEPT University, Ahmedabad. She is currently working on her thesis based on Semiotics and Architecture. The world of semiotics fascinates her and Heta enjoys analyzing different forms of visual art like architecture, advertisements, cinema etc. She was one of the participants covering the 12th International Jazz Festival at Capetown in 2011.

Ahmedabad, India

Jake Pearce

Born in UK & resident in New Zealand, Jake splits his time between NZ, Australia and Europe.
 His obsessions are understanding the future, new stuff and meaningful communication. Two websites reflect Jake's current interests: 

1. Generation C (digital natives) & innovation at www.jakepearce.com 
2. Referral Marketing www.thevillagesq.com 

 Jake worked at Added Value (the first dedicated brand strategy company), moved to Amsterdam to help set up 'consult, specialist marketing arm of Y&R, then to NZ which, with its cultural vibrancy and can do attitude, he sees as a global incubator for innovation. 


Auckland, New Zealand

Caroline Pearce

Caroline is a freelance academic and writer. Her current research focuses on the politics of emotion, analysing the rising political and public interest in happiness. Caroline has a BA in Sociology from the University of Derby and an MA in Sociology from the University of Manchester. Her past research has explored the experience of grief and loss and examined the role of emotions in qualitative research. She’s also worked as a research assistant at Loughborough University undertaking qualitative research into the experience of spinal injury. Caroline writes a blog: https://politicsofthehap.wordpress.com where you can find more of her work.

London, UK

Michael Colton

Director of Design Strategy for a Chicago strategic branding company, Michael uses semiotics in brand development, visual language research & global brand alignment initiatives for some of the US's largest companies. A BA in Anthropology from Rutgers, he worked as a community developer in Zimbabwe then a researcher at UC San Francisco into the physiological effects of multisensory signifiers on cocaine users. After working for Interbrand, Michael earned a Masters in Design Methodology from the Institute of Design in Chicago, closely mentored in semiotics by Duncan Berry, renowned Peircian and expert in neuro-design.

Chicago, USA

Vladimir Djurovic

Vladimir founded Labbrand in 2005. He has assisted over 70 brands to understand the Chinese market, identify their positioning, and execute their strategy. For both foreign and domestic companies looking to build a strong brand in China and foreign markets, Vladimir provides actionable insights based on comprehensive brand models and systematic methodologies. Vladimir graduated from Ecole Centrale de Paris as well as Shanghai Jiaotong University. He speaks fluent French, English, Mandarin, Russian and Serbian.

Shanghai, China

Dimitar Trendafilov

Dimitar has an MA in Business Administration and wrote his dissertation on brand positioning. He is now a PhD student at the New Bulgarian University (NBU) in Sofia, focusing on semiotic tools for research into markets, brands and cultural trend. After working in marketing with various companies Dimitar now teaches marketing and branding, working in the Socio-Semiotic Laboratory at NBU which studies brand awareness, positioning, commercial communication and local consumer behavior.

Sofia, Bulgaria

Maria Papanthymou

Maria spent over 10 years in advertising and research agencies (including ACNielsen, Publicis, BBDO), where she worked mainly as Media Research Director. She completed a dissertation on visual semiotics in 2004 and after that started working as a freelance semiotician with several international companies. She enjoyed the methodology so much that in 2009 she decided to make it her main field of specialization and founded semiotic and cultural research agency LocalTalk. Maria holds Masters (Hons) degree in Sociology and PhD in Social Psychology from State University of Management, Moscow.

Moscow, Russia

Ramona Lyons

A freelance semiotician and cultural insights expert in San Francisco, Ramona has pinpointed key language and imagery, crafted brand strategy and inspired innovation for established brands in the consumer packaged goods, apparel, technology, spirits and beverages, beauty, healthcare and food categories. Ramona has a Ph.D. from the University of Pennsylvania, with a focus on cultural studies and visual communication. Earlier in her career, she worked as a producer for television, and spent almost ten years as researcher, advertising and brand strategist for a global corporation.

San Francisco, US

Luca Marchetti

Trained at Bologna Communication Sciences Department directed by Umberto Eco. Luca works with diffusion & luxury brands, research institutes & communication agencies. Professor of Semiology of Fashion & Design at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux Arts in Lyon, he also teaches at the CELSA (Université de Paris IV, Sorbonne) & the Institut Français de la Mode. A regular contributor on fashion & design to Vogue Italia, Casa Vogue, Lotus International & Domus among others. Luca founded mosign (2006) with Emanuele Quinz for brand consulting and creative direction - www.mosign.fr

Paris, France

Opal Cerdan

Author, critic, on the faculty of Tourism & Women's Studies at the Welsh campus of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes in Benllech, Anglesey. One of Opal's main areas of research is cross-dressing and subjectivity in Welsh political activism, with special reference to the Rebecca Riots of the 1830s and 1840s. She is also a postmodern cake designer creating fantastic icing sculptures with alcoves wherein may be displayed actual cake. Much acclaimed & decorated internationally, with awards for her work at the interface of patisserie, cultural insight & cyborg theory.

Benllech, Anglesey, UK

Tim Spencer

Tim Spencer spent fifteen years in brand building for business, retail, fashion, and music, then five as an illustrator whilst starting a family. He joined a semiotics consultancy early 2010. Notable achievements; D&AD Silver nomination for hand drawn typography campaign (Paul Smith’s R.Newbold brand c1994); Global restructure of Caterpillar's brand licensing through self-authored workshop series; Re-branded UK's PrudentialPLC; Creative direction (and illustration) of the commercial launch of Scissor Sisters; hundreds of illustrations for BBC Top Gear; and two daughters.

Brighton, UK

João Paulo Cavalcanti

João (27) has a degree in Social Communications from PUCRS an is cofounder and VP of BOX 1824 (www.box1824.com), the renowned Brazilian consumption and behavior trends research company. BOX is active in emerging markets, such as BRIC and Latin America. João is also partner and cofounder of Brazilian creative hotshop LiveAD (www.livead.com.br). João also invests in web and technology companies, working on startup projects such as the news search engine www.Busk.com and the casual games studio aQuiris (www.aquiris.com.br).

Sao Paulo, Brasil

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