Semantic knowledge in the creation of brand-specific product design

The semantic dimension of product design is increasingly emphasised in developed product categories where technical differences between products are diminishing. Interests are shifting towards communicative product qualities that represent the symbolic domain of the product. In specific, product design may be used as a central manifestation of brand identity. When creating and nurturing brand-specific product design, the act of “encoding” strategic associations to products is thus of central interest. From a company’s viewpoint, the creation of strategic design language requires not only firm knowledge of the various product functions, typologies, and design references (in order to locate the domains of symbolic representation), but also (often inherently expressed) abilities to judge whether a specific solution is coherent to the brand’s identity. The use of experiential and strategic product knowledge ultimately concerns deciding the level of explicability and consistency of brandspecific design “cues”. This paper suggests a theoretical basis for brand-specific design knowledge and outlines a generic framework for employing this knowledge. The paper presents some preliminary findings of my doctoral research that aims to study how specific identity references are formed in product design to signal certain brand or category membership.