Free Semiosis 101 Transcript 4.20:

Semiosis 101

04 Feb 2026 — 8 min read

How Far Have You Semiotically Reframed Your Creativity?

Hello readers.

In this free transcript for the episode 4.20 published on Semiosis 101 on Weds 4th February 2026, we review what we have learnt so far about re-calibrating your creative mindsets. It has been a journey through pragmatic semiotic theory.

To contextualise this into your creative practice I have also introduced you to work more empathically with second-order thinking. I have grouped the episodes into six sub-themes, within the over-arching theme of a developing new semiotic mindset.

This will take you step-by-step through how Semiosis maps to how you already ideate in your creative process. So let us now review how you can ideate more intentionally (and semiotically) shall we?

Watch the free episode on YouTube for the full impact…

…and here is the episode’s transcript.

How Far Have You Semiotically Reframed Your Creativity?

So far this season, Semiosis 101 has helped you reconsider your creative mindset. Over the last twenty episodes we have explored many different aspects of how Charles Sanders Peirce’s pragmatic semiotic theory of Semiosis can be applied into your creative process. A fresh semiotic mindset is just a re-calibration on what you naturally do anyway, so let us review how…

Hopefully over the last 19 season four Semiosis 101 episodes you have realised that you have always been working semiotically, yes? You just have been doing so intuitively, blindly …tacitly. So, in this final 20th episode of this season we review what we have learnt so far about re-calibrating your creative mindsets. It has been a journey through pragmatic semiotic theory. To contextualise this into your creative practice I have also introduced you to work more empathically with second-order thinking. So let us now review how you can ideate more intentionally (and semiotically) shall we?

I grouped the episodes into six sub-themes, within the over-arching theme of a developing new semiotic mindset. This will take you step-by-step through how Semiosis maps to how you already ideate in your creative process. Let us go sign-actioneering!

This Semiosis 101 season four’s first three episodes helped to set the Peircean theoretical context, to then re-calibrate your creative mindset into a fresh semiotic frame of mind. We explored this through three HOW questions:

Episode 4.1 asked How Do CREATIVES Visually Communicate …THIS*? The THIS* is whatever needs visually communicating. To answer this we focused on meaning-bearing visual elements.

Episode 4.2 asked How Can CREATIVES Clearly Convey VISUAL Meaning? This gave me another opportunity to use the Semiosis box of tricks metaphor once again.

In episode 4.3 asked How CAN CREATIVES MAKE a Mindset Change Advantageous? This is where you began to understand that applying Semiosis is a natural extension of your existing creative practice.

You can watch these three episodes individually, or back-to-back in omnibus 4.1 A Semiotic Frame of Mind. From these first three HOW questions, we established your pragmatic context for developing a “Semiotic Frame of Mind,” to then flip the conversation sign-action.

In the next three episodes, this focused on semiotic sign-action and audience-centred ideation. One of the principle design books I used this season was Klaus Krippendorff’s The Semantic Turn. This seminal book on human-centred design was a book I thought I had fully read about a decade ago. It turns out I did not even own it (I must have had a library copy). Over Christmas 2023 I bought and read the book and, although the book focussed more on product design, I found many themes aligning with Semiosis. This is despite Krippendorff being very critical of semiotics and semioticians. Despite this I found many points of synthesis with Peirce.

The next sub-theme focused on you becoming semiotic sign-actioneers! We began with audience perceptions in episode 4.4, when I asked How Will Our Creativity Benefit from Audience Perceptions? In this episode we explored what your audience perceives in the visual language you use in your designs or illustrations. Then in episode 4.5 How Can Creative’s Ideas be Improved by the Logic of Design? we revisited Abductive reasoning - the Logic of Design - to set the context to explore pragmatic aesthetics. We focussed on ideating semiotically, and I introduced two mindsets for your thinking. Finally, in episode 4.6 we asked How Can CREATIVES HELP their Audience to Visually Interpret Meaning? In this episode we moved the discussion from triggering audience perception to retaining attention to visually encode meaning. Then we explored how to semiotically facilitate that meaning to the audience. You can watch episodes 4.4-4.6 individually, or back-to-back in omnibus 4.2 Semiotic Sign-actioneers: Second Ordering Semiosis.

Episodes 4.7-4.9 took us on a more phenomenological path to the things themselves. Semiotics is qualitative rather than quantitative. In visual communication, it is only partly on the crafting of visual meaning-bearing elements (semiotic signs). Semiosis is also the effect of those visual meaning-bearing elements (signs) on the minds of the target audience. This phenomena is deeply structured in Peirce’s pragmatic semiotic theory. These three phenomenological episodes where grouped into a sub-theme of semiotically hacking audience experiences. I use the word hacking quite intentionally as an action to exploit the hard-wired human ability to see meaning in patterns. After all, ancient humans evolved this ability to read the signs in nature to find food and avoid becoming dinner.

In the next three episodes, I revisited your audience’s lived experiences. This is their socio-cultural learnt contexts that they draw on to understand and interpret what they see. In 4.7 I asked How CAN CREATIVES HELP Audiences to Commit Their Attention? In this episode we focused on semiotically encoding for audience’s reaction. This was from insights from the audience’s lived experiences to conceptualise perception and semiotically facilitate their attention. Then in 4.8 we explored How Do CREATIVES Hook More Audience Awareness? We looked at aesthetic hooks, semiotic triggers and the audience’s deposition to act on what they perceive. Finally, in 4.9 we used the audience’s phenomenological lifeworlds to ask the question How Do CREATIVES USE AUDIENCE Imagination TO CONVEY Meaning? Check out the three episodes in omnibus 4.3 Simply Things - Semiotically Hacking Audience Experiences.

With episodes 4.10 - 4.13 we began to go deeper, and spend more time across four episodes to examine the audience’s socio-cultural expectations, for clues from their lived experiences. In 4.10 we looked at Semiosis providing a structured meaning-space for creatives, and contextual interpretation. I asked How do CREATIVES REALISE Meaning IS in the Eye-of-the-Beholder? From this point, episode 4.11 asked How Do Ephemeral Semiotic Qualities Help You to Visually Communicate? I returned to explaining the ephemeral semiotic building blocks to interpretation. This then led to the question in episode 4.12 How Do Visual Meaning Contexts Inform CREATIVITY? Followed up in episode 4.13 by How Can Our Creativity be Enhanced by Other Points-of-view? These two questions demonstrated how ideation can be informed by Hypothesis. These four episodes can be watched individually, or back-to-back in omnibus 4.4 Semiotic Cultural Cues.

With episodes 4.14 - 4.17 we began the second batch of four episodes, to consolidate your understanding that semiotic signs are nested in plain sight. They are dormant like a Trojan Horse until activated. With episode 4.14’s question How Can CREATIVES AVOID Second-guessing What Audiences Understand? I framed your audience as your knowledge agents. Then with 4.15’s question How CAN CREATIVES Semiotically Communicate Complex Messages? we saw how semiotically audience involvement helps simplify visually communicating to them. We continued this point in 4.16 with the question How Can CREATIVE Messaging be Semiotically Mediated to an Audience? and in 4.17 with How Can CREATIVITY BE ENHANCED by Engaging Our Audience’s Intuition? Let me just say narrative is the semiotic key! These four episodes can be watched individually, or back-to-back in omnibus 4.5 The Semiotic Trojan Horse.

To end season four on A Semiotic Mindset, I spent the last two episodes summarising how your creative mindset can evolve into a fresh semiotic frame of mind. In episode 4.18 we consolidated How CAN YOU CREATIVES Strengthen Your Meaning-bearing Impact? We did this by focussing on applying sign-action by manipulating audience contexts to shape and impact their interpretations. In episode 4.19 we reviewed How can Semiosis CHANGE a Creative’s Mindset? In this penultimate episode we saw how Semiosis can facilitate behavioural change by structuring the visual communication of meaning-bearing elements more effectively. I made the case how applying Semiosis is an extension to your existing creative process. These episodes, together with the next episode previewing season five, will be available to watch back-to-back in omnibus 4.6 Creatively Crafting a New Semiotic Mindset.

So we end this fourth season of Semiosis 101 which focused on a fresh semiotic frame of mind in your creatives. Ironically, to do this I spent most of the season examining how your audience is your ally. By semiotically aligning your ideation phase to their lived experiences you will change your creative mindset for the better. Season five will pragmatically help you to re-calibrate your fresh semiotic frame of mind. In the next episode we will preview what Semiosis 101 season fives’s theme will be for the next 20 episodes.

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