Communication theory: novaya zarya
List of contents
1. How communication theory works in the field of design 2. Presentation of brand for a general audience 3. Presentation of brand for a professional audience 4. Explanation of presentation creation tools 5. Sources
The Novaya Zarya perfume line
How communication theory works in the field of design
Communication theory is a way of perceiving design as a process of making sense, and design is not a visual design, but a form of interaction subject to the same laws as interpersonal, group or mass communication. Any design object (brand, identity, book, interface, or art project) acts as a message that is addressed to the audience and embedded in a specific media text.
Visual communication can work both through rational reflection and through peripheral signals (aesthetics, atmosphere, emotional tone), as shown by rhetorical approaches and the Elaboration Likelihood Model. In addition to the content, the meaning is formed by the medium itself: websites, social networks, printed media or exhibition spaces create different communication conditions and direct the audience’s attention in different ways.
Communication is a process of creating meaning, rather than simply conveying information.
The meaning is not embedded in the brand’s visual, it arises in the process of interaction between the object, the audience and the environment. Here, the designer acts as a communicator who creates the conditions for interpretation.
The audience is an active participant in communication, choosing, interpreting and reinterpreting messages, which is especially evident in product design, where users are directly involved in brand formation through interaction, feedback and distribution.
The critical tradition of communication allows us to consider design as part of a broader social order. Visual languages, brands, and aesthetic solutions are not neutral: they convey values, norms, and notions of «normal» and «desirable.»
Based on the above, communication theory provides an analytical and critical foundation for design practice. In this project, it is used as the basis for a fictional brand, building different types of communication with the audience and choosing visual and rhetorical strategies.
Presentation of brand for a general audience
Logo
Novaya Zarya is a Russian perfume brand founded in 1992. Initially, it was created as a brand of affordable and high-quality perfumes, whose images are drawn to Russian culture, history and nature.
Merch Novaya zarya
The brand’s fragrances have always worked on emotions and memories: they recognized the motifs of the forest, earth, flowers, romantic and warm associations familiar to many since childhood.
Over time, the brand became part of everyday culture and memory, but by 2025, Novaya Zarya had lost its relevance for the modern market. Despite this, the brand’s range retains many expressive and high-quality fragrances that are still able to compete with modern products, but have been forgotten due to outdated identity, positioning and communication.
We want to remind you about the brand, which is associated with childhood, family memory and the past, but to rethink it in the context of modernity. In recent years, nostalgia and interest in retro paraphernalia have become more significant for a younger audience: the past is no longer associated with something mossy and gloomy, it is romanticized and turns into a source of inspiration.
The updated Novaya Zarya is a brand that respects its history but speaks a modern language. Bright colors, graphics and new positioning make it possible to preserve the Russian identity, getting rid of the image of grandmother’s spirits.
Merch Novaya zarya
The idea of rebranding is based around the principle of «new forgotten old».
The Novaya Zarya perfume line
The rebranding is aimed at attracting a new audience: creative youth and modern confident women who value individuality, history, culture and emotional connection with the brand. The main message is to show that Russia has developed a perfumery tradition, and Novaya Zarya can be relevant, stylish and desirable today.
Presentation of brand for a professional audience
Perfume bottle Krasnaya Moskva
Novaya Zarya perfume blotters
The visual identity of the Novaya Zarya brand is being built as an integral communication system based on a semiotic and socio-cultural reinterpretation of the brand’s heritage. Each design solution functions as a sign, forming new meanings around a familiar image and guiding the audience’s interpretation towards nostalgia, updated through the prism of modernity.
Novaya Zarya packages
The brand consciously works with collective memory, transforming the «good old» into an actual visual language.
Perfume bottle Pikovaya Dama
Gift certificate Novaya Zarya
The color palette is based on bright, open shades. The key color becomes a rich, almost neon orange — a direct reference to dawn as a symbol of beginning, renewal and hope. It enhances the emotional expressiveness of the brand and makes it visible in the modern visual field. Additional colors — red, blue and emerald green — expand the palette, forming a dynamic and lively system. In a semiotic sense, these colors work as markers of energy, sincerity, and reliability, creating a strong emotional connection.
Shaping and compositional solutions balance stability and flexibility. Clear but not rigid shapes create a sense of structure while maintaining visual lightness and accessibility. This approach allows the brand to distance itself from archaism, while maintaining its connection with the historical context.
The logo is a symbolic sign. The simplified rays of the setting sun are a metaphor for memory, warmth, and generational continuity. This image simultaneously appeals to the past and is read in an actual visual environment, creating a common symbolic space for different age groups.
Logo
The typographic system plays a key role in creating a new brand reading. An accidental serif font is used as a carrier of nostalgia and visual memory, referring to the brand’s history, while a modern grotesque font is used for typesetting, ensuring readability and relevance. The contrast between the font types creates an allusion to the dialogue between the past and the present, allowing you to preserve both the nostalgic character and speak the language of a modern audience.
Visual content avoids excessive idealization. It is built around sensations, states, and familiar images. It leaves room for personal associations and interpretations. This strategy supports a phenomenological approach in which the audience does not consume a ready-made narrative, but correlates the visual language of the brand with their own experiences and memories.
References for running social media
References for running social media
In general, the visual system of Novaya Zarya is aimed at reducing visual and semantic noise and enhancing emotional clarity. The expected audience reaction is recognition, trust, and emotional engagement. The brand is moving away from the image of an artifact of the past and becoming an actual cultural statement in which nostalgia is a fulcrum for a new dialogue.
Explanation of presentation creation tools
The creation of the Novaya Zarya brand presentations was based on the theoretical understanding of communication as a multi-layered process in which meaning is formed in the interaction between the medium, the message and the audience. Within the framework of the project, theory was used not abstractly, but as a practical tool for building different scenarios of brand perception for a wide and professional audience.
The brand’s presentation to a wide audience is based on the ideas of an active audience and the theory of uses and gratifications. The viewer is viewed not as a passive recipient of information, but as a participant who seeks emotional satisfaction, recognition, and aesthetic experience. Personal memories and cultural associations are activated through nostalgic images, vivid visual language and an understandable narrative. Framing principles are also used here: the brand is intentionally placed in the environment of a new reading of the past, which allows us to shift perception from an outdated image to an actual and desirable one. McLuhan’s media-ecological approach is manifested in the fact that the very form of the presentation (visual dynamics, color, rhythm) becomes part of the message and enhances the emotional impact.
The Novaya Zarya perfume line
The brand’s presentation to a professional audience is based on semiotic, sociocultural, and critical approaches. In this case, communication works at the level of analysis and reflection: visual identity is considered as a system of signs embedded in a cultural and historical context. The tools of agenda setting are used here — the audience’s attention is directed to the meaningfulness of design decisions, their logic and theoretical validity. Professional presentation also correlates with PR theories of dialogue and relationship management: the brand demonstrates openness, reasonableness and willingness to professional discussion.
In general, the project follows the principles of theory guided communication: each presentation is adapted to a specific type of audience, its motivations and ways of media consumption. The theoretical strategies of the course — from media ecology and an active audience to framing and critical analysis of culture — were used to transform the rebranding of Novaya Zarya from a visual update into a meaningful communication strategy capable of working at different levels of perception.
Perfume bottle Pikovaya Dama
The presentations of the Novaya Zarya brand are based on several key theoretical areas:
Message Design Determined the brand’s communication tone. Instead of purely informative or nostalgically expressive logic, rhetorical logic is used, adapting messages to the emotional state of the audience. The presentations are structured in such a way as not to impose the values of the past, but to gently involve them in their reinterpretation through the visual and semantic contrast of the old and the new.
Cultural and historical approach It allowed us to consider the brand as a carrier of collective memory. Presentations work with visual archetypes, colors, and typography as cultural markers that activate historical and emotional layers of perception.
Craig’s communication traditions formed the theoretical framework of the project. The semiotic tradition formed the basis for working with visual symbols (dawn, color, typography as memory carriers). The socio-cultural tradition has allowed us to consider the brand as part of the collective cultural experience and historical context. The phenomenological tradition has supported the focus on personal memories and subjective experiences of the audience. The rhetorical tradition has helped to build a convincing but ethically delicate communication, avoiding manipulation and pressure.
Perfume bottle Krasnaya Moskva
Thus, the presentations of the Novaya Zarya brand become not just a demonstration of visual identity, but a full-fledged communicative practice that connects theory and design, past and present, brand and audience in a single space of meanings and emotional connections.
Slogan
Course «Communication Theory: Bridging Academia and Practice», Smart LMS [Online Course], 2025
Olshanskaya N. educational project «novaya zarya» [Electronic resource].- Available at: https://hsedesign.ru/project/a322dec31d3e41c8bd73e66f06593de4 (10.12.2025)
Moodboard pictures taken from open resource «Pinterest» [Elecronic resource]. — Available at: https://ru.pinterest.com/olshaniki/новая-заря-ребрендинг/
