Communication theory: «Making Surprises»
Communication theory in the field of design
Contemporary design is a fundamental act of communication, where every visual element functions as a symbol within a complex semiotic system. According to the constitutive approach, communication is not a channel for transmitting pre-packaged meanings, but a process of co-creating significance. Within this paradigm, design becomes a strategic tool capable not merely of attracting attention, but of actively shaping social reality, relationships, and shared identity.
This strategic role of design is realized through three interconnected principles. First, design operates as a vehicle for storytelling, embodying Walter Fisher’s narrative paradigm. Through form, colour, composition, and typography, it encodes narratives that the audience decodes according to their cultural context. Second, the designer navigates the balance between strategic agency and structural constraints, utilising both substantive arguments and aesthetic signals, while always acknowledging that the chosen medium—be it a physical object or a digital interface—inherently dictates the conditions of perception. Third, design evolves from functional persuasion to critical reflection: it not only creates user-friendly interfaces and manages audience relationships through dialogue but is also capable of challenging dominant cultural norms.
Thus, in the contemporary understanding, design is a powerful mediator of relationships that shapes new social practices and rituals. It transforms practice from the mere creation of objects into the conscious design of how meaning is generated, shared, and contested in the world.
For the «Making Surprises» brand, this means a fundamental shift in positioning: we are not just designing a gift delivery service, but a new form of social interaction. Our product—the gift box—functions as a materialized communicative act that redefines the established ritual of gift-giving, transforming it from a source of stress and uncertainty into a source of joy and confidence.
The semiotic tradition, which views communication as the exchange of signs within culturally conditioned systems, holds a central place in our strategy. Every element of the «Making Surprises» identity is a carefully designed sign carrying specific meaning:
Mascot «Bompochka» (The Little Bomb) — an iconic sign visualizing the brand’s core value: an explosion of positive emotions, spontaneous joy, and the energy of surprise.
Graphic symbols «?» and «!" — indexical signs marking the consumer’s journey: from the question («What should I give?») to the emotional resolution («Wow!»).
«Blot» in the identity — a symbolic sign of creative chaos and unpredictability, deliberately contrasted with the dull, clichéd aesthetics of traditional gifts.
These signs form a coherent semiotic system that re-codes the gift category: we move away from signs of predictability, formality, and passive consumption («bought at the last minute») towards signs of intrigue, emotional engagement, and joint action («a story experienced together»).
Our color system functions as a tool for managing attention and emotion. The Core of Energy. The contrast of acid lime and deep purple creates visual tension and dynamism, acting as a powerful peripheral cue to capture attention in the digital noise. It is a semiotic sign of explosion and bold creativity.The light, pastel gamut serves a different function, evoking associations with tenderness, care, and quality. It is used for the design of the physical packaging, creating a sense of premium feel and balancing the explosive energy of the first palette. Integration into the Ecosystem: From Digital Trigger to Physical Ritual. This dual system is a practical application of the media ecology approach. In the digital environment, Palette 1 dominates to attract attention. At the moment of tactile contact (packaging), Palette 2 comes to the fore to materialize care. Thus, the visual system is a flexible communication interface that encodes different phases of the user journey.
Our approach also relies on the sociocultural tradition and Anthony Giddens' Theory of Structuration. We analyze the gift-giving ritual not as a set of individual actions, but as a social practice reproduced within certain structures (rules, norms, resources).
- Existing structure: The ritual implies that the giver must independently spend time, be creative, guess desires, wrap, and present the gift. This creates high levels of stress and risk («I won’t guess right,» «they won’t like it»).
- Our agency as a brand: «Making Surprises» acts as an agent of change, using existing rules but filling them with new content. We offer a new structure — a system of ready-made thematic boxes with preserved intrigue.
- New practice: The user (agent) receives a simplified script that relieves them of the burden of choice but preserves and even enhances their agency in the sphere of emotional gesture. The ritual is reproduced, but its meaning and emotional coloring are transformed: from a test of attentiveness, it becomes a guaranteed act of joy.
Thus, communication theory provides «Making Surprises» not with a set of abstract terms, but with a practical toolkit for designing a meaningful brand that actively shapes new, more positive social practices.
PRESENTATION FOR A GENERAL AUDIENCE
Do you recognize that feeling of inner panic when a friend’s birthday, an anniversary, or any other occasion for a gift approaches on the calendar? Time slips through your fingers, ideas run dry, and standard solutions in stores seem impersonal and insincere. We live in a world where attention is valued, but we constantly lack the most precious resource to show it—time.
At «Making Surprises,» we believe that giving joy should be easy, pleasant, and stress-free. What if the perfect gift wasn’t something you had to search for, but could simply… receive ready-made, while preserving the most valuable part—the magic of surprise?
«Making Surprises» is a service that takes on all the hard work of creating the perfect gift, leaving you only the best part: choosing the mood and the moment of presentation.
Our Solution: A Ready Surprise, Not Just a Box
How it works —simply and magically:
- You choose an emotion, not an item. Three box lines: «BOOM» (for explosive fun and bright impressions), «MEGA-BOOM» (a balanced mix of useful and pleasant), «SUPER-BOOM» (a truly luxurious and memorable experience).
- You know the theme but keep the intrigue. You see the general direction (e.g., «For Creative Inspiration» or «For the Perfect Evening»), but the exact contents remain a surprise until the very moment of unboxing. This is the key element of play and anticipation.
- You receive a ready-made performance. Each box is a carefully curated collection of high-quality, unique, and useful items, packaged with impeccable care. A stylish card is already included. All you have to do is hand it over and enjoy the reaction.
Who is it for? For everyone who has ever said or thought:
«I have absolutely no time to look for anything.»
«I don’t have a single idea of what they might like.»
«I’m afraid of making a mistake and giving a useless gift.»
«I want to give not just a thing, but an emotion.»
Our mission is to return the gift-giving ritual to its original meaning: to strengthen connections, give positive emotions, and create shared memories, freeing this process from stress and uncertainty.
PRESENTATION FOR A PROFESSIONAL AUDIENCE
Thesis: From Product to Communication Platform
«Making Surprises» represents not just another e-commerce startup, but a case study in designing a brand as a semiotic system and communication platform. We shift the focus from the transactional sale of goods to the management of a social ritual, using design and communication theory as primary strategic tools.
1. Semiotic Layer: Constructing a Visual Language. The brand’s visual identity is built on the principle of meaningful opposition to market codes.
- Against: Predictability, cliché, impersonality of mass-market, complexity of choice.
- For: Spontaneity («blot»), emotional clarity of the journey (»?» -> «!»), personalization through the mascot, simplicity of decision-making (3 categories). The mascot «Bompochka» functions as a personified metaphor of the brand’s value and the main communicator, translating abstract ideas into friendly dialogue.
2. Phenomenological Layer: Designing the Peak Experience. The meaning of a gift is born not at the moment of online purchase, but in the shared, tactile experience of unboxing. We design this experience:
- Haptics: The weight of the box, the quality of the paper, the sound of tearing tape create a sensory feedback loop that heightens anticipation.
- Dramaturgy: Unboxing is the climax, a micro-performance where the box is the prop, and the giver and receiver are the actors. The packaging design is the scenography of this act.
- Joint Attention: The culmination is the shared emotional experience, a moment of synchronization that is the brand’s ultimate product.
3. Social Interaction Layer: Ritual and Impression Management. The box functions as a key «prop» in impression management (Erving Goffman) for both participants.
- For the giver: Purchasing the box is a strategy to satisfy the need for «positive face» (the desire to be positively evaluated) while minimizing the risk of «losing face» associated with a poor choice. The brand acts as a guarantor of the social performance’s success.
- For the receiver: The reaction to the gift becomes a public «documentary confirmation» of the relationship’s significance, strengthening the social bond.
Growth Strategy: From Consumers to Co-creators of a Community
We are building not a customer base, but a community of co-creators through a mechanic based on Symbolic Convergence Theory .
Mechanic: #WhatsInTheBox? The person giving the gift can invite the receiver to guess the contents before opening, sharing this on social media with the corresponding hashtag.
Effect: This launches «fantasy chains» — the joint creation of narratives around the product. Users transform from passive buyers into active co-authors of the brand’s content and meaning, forming a strong group identity and ensuring organic growth.
«Making Surprises» consciously avoids competition in the plane of «gift items.» Through the application of Optimal Distinctiveness Theory , we create a new hybrid category — «emotional service» or «ritual platform.»
To clearly demonstrate this unique positioning, let’s analyze key criteria in comparison to competitors:
Core Customer Value
- Traditional Retail: Product & Assortment. Their fundamental value lies in physical goods and the breadth of choice. The promise is: «We have the items; you find the right one.»
- Personal Services (Shoppers, Consultants): Exclusivity & Expert Time. Their value is the human element: personalized curation and access to specialized taste. The promise is: «We invest our expertise and time to understand your unique needs.»
- «Making Surprises»: Guaranteed Emotion, Stress Relief & a Ready Ritual. Our value is fundamentally different. We do not sell things; we sell a guaranteed outcome: the positive emotions of a successful gift, the relief from cognitive burden, and a complete, ready-to-perform social ritual. Our promise: «We deliver confidence and joy, not just a product.»
The «Pain» We Solve: The Core Problem Addressed
- Traditional Retail: Overwhelming Choice. Ironically, they often are the problem. An endless aisle of options leads to decision paralysis, wasted time, and anxiety about making the «wrong» choice.
- Personal Services: High Cost & Subjectivity. The primary pain points are financial (high fees) and the inherent risk that the final selection still depends on the subjective taste of another person, which may not align perfectly with the recipient.
- «Making Surprises»: Fear of Mistake & Scarcity of Time/Ideas. We target the deep psychological and practical pain of the modern giver: the paralyzing fear of giving a disappointing or inappropriate gift, combined with the acute, everyday scarcity of time and creative inspiration. Our solution directly removes this friction.
This positioning opens unique opportunities for B2B partnerships (corporate gifts, collaborations with brands for box contents) and scaling the model.
«Making Surprises» demonstrates how communication theory, when integrated into the design process at a systemic level, allows for the creation of not just a commercially viable, but also a culturally relevant brand that redefines existing social practices.
COMMUNICATION THEORY STRATEGIES
Our development is consciously built on an interpretive paradigm, focusing on the subjective meanings that the audience assigns to an object through interaction, rather than on measurable effects. This reflects the nature of design as a field for identity construction and the co-creation of social reality. Developing the strategy for «Making Surprises» was methodological investigation where each step was determined by specific theoretical lenses. The path from problem analysis to a finished brand can be described as a sequential synthesis and instrumentalization of key traditions, where each theory became a specific tool for solving strategic problems.
Stage 1: Diagnosis through Sociocultural and Critical Lenses. We started not with the question «what product to create?» but with an analysis of gift-giving as a social practice. A critical approach allowed us to identify its deep-seated dysfunctions: a ritual meant to strengthen bonds had been co-opted by the ideology of the «perfect, unique, time-consuming gift,» becoming a source of stress. This formed a clear problem statement: it was necessary not to improve choice, but to reinvent the very structure of the ritual, making it easy, foolproof, and joyful again.
Stage 2: Design through Semiotics and Phenomenology. With the answer to «WHAT to change?» we moved to «HOW?» Semiotics became a tool for constructing a new code. We designed not a set of random images, but a coherent system of interconnected signs: «Bompochka» (explosion of emotions), «?» and «!» (the path from question to delight), «blot» (spontaneity). Together, they transmitted a new set of values, opposed to the market: ease, playfulness, and emotion instead of seriousness, weight, and transactionality. Phenomenology shifted the focus from the product-object to the user experience-process. This determined the key decision: intrigue as the product’s core. Value was shifted from the material contents to the emotional peak of the shared unboxing. The tactility of the packaging, its weight, sound—all of this became the design of precisely this shared experience, where the ultimate meaning is born.
Stage 3: Instrumentalization through Structuration and Exchange Theory. At the implementation stage, theories became explanatory and predictive models. Structuration Theory (Giddens) allowed us to describe the brand’s mechanics at a meta-level: we create a new structure (the rules of the game with three boxes) that expands the user’s agency in the emotional sphere (the ability to easily make a bright gesture), freeing them from agency in the sphere of stressful choice. Social Exchange Theoryprovided a clear formula for B2C communication, making the value proposition indisputable: it is necessary to make the rewards (saving time, stress relief, guaranteed emotions, strengthened bonds) maximally obvious, and the costs (price, minimal risk) — minimal and understandable.
4: Scaling through Cybernetics and Symbolic Convergence. The final stage—designing growth. A cybernetic approach was applied to create a closed communication loop: trigger on social media -> action on the website -> peak experience (unboxing) -> feedback (sharing reaction with hashtag) -> new trigger. This is a self-sustaining system. Symbolic Convergence Theory provided the mechanics for turning users into a community. The hashtag challenge #WhatsInTheBox is a «dramatizing message» designed to launch «fantasy chains» and create a shared «rhetorical vision» around the brand.
Thus, «Making Surprises» is a case of theory-informed design, where each concept acted as a specific tool. Our box has become a hybrid communication node: it functions as a narrative in the digital environment, as a «prop» for social performance during gifting, as a script for shared experience, and as a memory artifact. This synthesis ensured not an intuitive, but a reasoned, consistent, and profound development of a brand that does not sell a product but designs a new form of social interaction.
«Communication Theory: Bridging Academia and Practice», HSE online-course (дата обращения: 10.12.2025).
«Делаем сюрпризы» // HSEDESIGN URL: https://portfolio.hse.ru/Project/205367# (дата обращения: 10.12.2025).
