Communication Theory: Noctown
Table of contents
1. Reasoning on how communication theory works in the design field 2. Brand presentation for general audience 3. Brand presentation for professional audience 4. Communication theory as basis for presentations explanation 5. Bibliography and sources of images
Reasoning on how communication theory works in the design field
Communication in the field of design can be understood as the building the relationship between the creator of art, visualisation for a brand or another design related piece and the audience who consumes this content. Those two sides are one of the key features of communication. The sender is the creator who creates the initial message including the ideas and meanings. The receiver is the audience who perceives this message trying to interpret it and make an opinion on it (feedback). In other words — sender side, which encodes a certain message and receiver side, which decodes this message. Also, there are such key concepts of communication in general as symbols (meanings embedded in message) and channels («tools» for transferring the message).
Communication is always a process: the process of creating a piece of art by some person and then interpreting this message by the other ones, process of exchanging opinions and feedback, process of encoding and decoding meanings embedded in a message. Without having two main sides (sender and receiver) and performing an actual act of interaction between them, there won’t be any communication. The same goes for the design field — without a catchy logo, your potential customer won’t pay attention to your product. However, while communicating, one side can be easily misunderstood by the other one. It usually happens due to different background, culture and context which receivers of a certain message may have. Users and customers interpret visual and verbal signals based on their cultural and social experiences. It makes communication a very complex issue. To avoid any misunderstandings, people can turn to Communication theories concept basics, so did we in this project.
Returning to the design field, design itself is not a neutral visual object made only for beauty. On the contrary, it helps the author (because each component of design (brand logo, advertisement, unique brand colour palette etc.) is surely related to its creator, it can’t exist without the carrier of an idea) to encode needed ideas, values, and intentions through visual and narrative elements. It helps brands to reach their goals in various ways, which Communication theories provide. At the same time, design influences people’s behaviour, emotional states, and social interaction. For this reason, theories of communication are essential for understanding how design works beyond just aesthetics — as a tool for structuring experience, guiding action. And as a tool for creating strong relationships, of course. Thus, a very important thing when you want to use design in terms of communication is to understand how people’s behaviour works. To use some psychology. And of course to use some essential theories from Communication theories concept.
For all of the described processes above the particular media as the way to communicate is needed. And for now, for the field of design, mass communication is an important part of it as it was through history, but it has changed quite a lot due to the new technologies and media as well that have always been evolving. Nowadays we are in the electronic age and it makes us live even more in the global village, basically, online. Social media is everywhere and they are used every second by a major part of the people. So, it definitely affects the design sphere and the way the creator presents and shares their work and the way the viewer consumes it. Social media has become a big part of this field throughout the past decades. The creator can share and promote their arts through the online platforms and in exchange the audience can see it, react and follow and be updated by authors. And it makes our life easier and has its benefits in terms of design. Interactivity allows directly communicating with the audience and, if we speak about technical interactivity, the technical features of the applications also helps to shape the content and be suitable for the particular type of content. As well this feedback is very instant and quick. In general, the process of mutually sharing and communicating by creator and audience is easily accessible through social media. On the internet the creator has the opportunity to keep a huge amount of their content online and share it with the audience. Basically, it is a huge online gallery consisting of their pieces of design work.
In this project, we also tried to apply some communication theories presented in the Communication theories course. Further in the longread, we will provide two presentations of our project, based on several theories from the course which are the most suitable for our brand-based project.
Our imaginary brand Noctown is a network of coworking spaces for so-called «night owls», people who are mostly awake at night. It’s a place where people with irregular sleep schedules can have a good time while the rest of the city sleeps, and even find some interesting company. Let’s apply some useful communications theories to our project theme and move on to the brand presentations. There will be two types of presentations: for the general audience and for the professional audience.
Brand presentation for general audience
The owl people.
Not all people feel alive during the day. For someone, night is just the right time to live. At night, when their thoughts become clearer, there are no distractions, and focus for work finally appears. Society calls these people «owls», because they are the most productive at night.Concept of invitations to coworking’s opening
The night coworking.
Noctown is a network of nighttime coworking spaces created for those who work, study, create and live after sun sets. We believe that night is not a pause — it’s just a different rhythm. At night, the city slows down. There is less action, fewer interactions. Less life. For freelancers, students, designers, developers, writers, and night-shift workers, daytime spaces sometimes don’t work due to their night lifestyle. They may want to have communication, to be involved in some group — but usually it’s impossible at night time.
Concepts of interior’s posters
A safe space.
Noctown exists to support people with different schedule without any judgment. Our coworking is open when other places are closed. We offer quiet work zones, soft lighting, comfortable seating, and carefully designed interiors that reduce visual and mental overload. In Noctown nothing rushes you. You simply come, work at your own pace or just stay and make some friends with people who live just like you.Concepts of interior’s posters
A community of people who are similar to you.
Noctown brings together people who share a similar rhythm, not necessarily the same profession. Some of them come to finish projects. Some of them come to study in silence. Some of them come to escape loneliness. You don’t have to talk — but you’re not alone.Concept of interior’s poster
Noctown.
Noctown is for people who don’t fit into the conventional schedule of being awake and productive only at daytime. Here night isn’t a flaw. Being an «owl» person isn’t something wrong. It’s an identity.Brand presentation for professional audience
About Noctown, nighttime coworking network.
Noctown is a network of nighttime coworking spaces designed for people whose active life begins after sunset. The project provides the needs of people who have a nocturnal rhythm of life — freelancers, students, remote workers, night workers, introverted people. These are individuals who lack comfort, active work involvement and social presence in daytime, conventional time for being productive, due to the individuals’ lifestyle.Concept of logo
The positioning.
Noctown brand is built around the idea that night is not a pause in social life, but just a different rhythm of it. The project reframes nocturnal activity not as a deviation, but as a valid and possible way of living. By doing so, Noctown positions itself as a supportive environment where alternative schedules are normalised and respected.Concept of recreation zone inside coworking space
The design as communication approach.
As we have discussed earlier, design usually works as a communication approach rather than just an aesthetically looking image. We applied this feature in Noctown. The visual identity in Noctown is based on aquarel-like images with dark and light grey, black, white, and muted pastel purple and a few amount of yellow colours (as visual solution both in visual brand style and in coworking physical interior ways). It also includes blurred contours, gentle light transitions, and muted tones. All of this forms associations with night, calmness, safety, and quiet. Soft lighting and neat typography of Resist Sans font reduce visual overload. These elements communicate stability, care, and emotional comfort. The coworking space building is structured vertically, with each floor representing a different level of activity and silence. This special level is distributed as follows: the first floor, where the reception is located, is the most active, and the fifth floor, the last one, is the quietest and most peaceful. Such arrangement of floors allows the coworking users to intuitively choose how and where they want to stay, bringing more comfort and letting users have their own solutions about their place of choice, without any harsh persuasion.Concept of reception desk inside coworking space
Concept of library inside coworking space
Concepts of navigation inside coworking space
The importance of community.
Noctown coworkings are designed for people who value the presence of others without a terrible need to interact with them. Communication within this space is guided by delicate design hints rather than obvious rules. For example, such unique feature as wearing optional «Social interaction level» badges allow users to signal their willingness to communicate, creating a respectful and low-pressure social environment. The community in Noctown isn’t formed around one certain profession, but around a shared lifestyle. This creates a sense of belonging based on identity rather than role, strengthening client’s emotional connection to the space and other people who use services of coworking.
Concepts of «Social interaction level» badges
The customer focus.
Noctown works 24 hours a day, which means that it welcomes its guests even at daytime. If the guest wants to take a rest when the sun is still up, Noctown won’t oppose his or her request. On the contrary, it will provide an arranged service in accordance with the guest’s wishes. Coworking also offers flexible access systems through personal «Pass» cards and time-based tariffs (per 24 hours and per 1 hour). Guests can get into coworking spaces by purchasing a certain tariff which will satisfy them the most. The system is designed to be transparent and predictable, allowing guests to focus on their work or rest. All payment issues can be resolved at the reception desk on the first floor.Noctown presents its coworkings as an adaptive, flexible to its clients’ requests, and not forced communicative environment. This project shows how such an approach in design and communication fields can shape social experience, normalise non-conventional lifestyles, and create meaningful connections through space, symbols, and interaction rather than direct and persistent persuasion.
Concept of personal «Pass» card
Concept of package for shopping inside coworking space
Concepts of packages for shopping inside coworking space
Communication theory as basis for presentations explanation
Communication theories were used in both of the presentations as a basis for explaining the «Noctown» brand. So, it helps to describe all the important elements of an imaginary brand and how it helps to reveal the main ideas. Conceptually theories can be divided into three main groups and each of them works on the particular idea.
To begin with, the creation of community and communication within is one of the important points of a brand. As we can learn from Social Identity theory, the need to be part of some group is essential for people. So, in the «Noctown» building people share the common positive identity that is called «owl». Partially people feel their own identity is derived from the group they are affiliated with. And to be the night person is that part of our identity which we can figure out with help of the «Noctown» community. To describe this group to be more exact from the perspective of the types of group the formed «owl» community is a more relation-oriented group that focuses on the interpersonal connections and on quality interactions. As well as it is an in-group where an individual feels he or she belongs to and feels comfortable to exist without any judgment.
However, within this particular community the full affiliation is not necessary at all. Optimal distinctiveness theory explains the balance between assimilation and differentiation which allows us to maintain to be similar with the members of a community and be different from them at the same time. The guest has free will to have conversation and make friends. But at the same time he or she does not have to do these activities, because it is not some of the defined rules or necessary tasks that are required from everyone. And still the feeling that you are not alone is here. For this aims «Noctown» coworking has the different stages from more active to more quiet and the badges that are worn to inform people around about your will to communicate or not.
To continue the theme of the judgment and expectations, Politeness theory speaks about the face, in other words, the desired self-image a person wishes to present to others. This theory distinguishes two faces: positive, a person’s need to be liked and accepted by others, and negative, a person’s desire to act freely without limitations and restrictions. The «Noctown» community allows everyone to wear their negative face to feel comfortable and as well to not bother others. It also reduces the face-threatening behavior (which is actions that affect the changing of your self-image in front of someone who uses some strategies to reach this result) within a group.
Also our imaginary brand can be observed from a more pragmatic point of view. Social exchange theory in general sees human nature selfish and having the relationships to gain the benefits and minimise the costs. Interdependence theory, one of the variations of SET (Social Exchange Theory), means that by someone’s efforts we gain our outcomes and at the same time we seek the relations where the benefits outweigh the costs. So, here in the «Noctown» people have their benefits: safety, belonging, comfort and absence of pressure. In exchange their costs to get it are reduced: social anxiety, loneliness and imbalance with the day world. However, we still do not eliminate the emotion part and see egoism rather as a «healthy egoism» that allows us to to cover our needs but at the same time to not feel disturbed.
Social presence theory basically outlines the degree of salience of one person in interpersonal relationships. And then higher social presence level is then better understanding the interlocutor’s message and building the conversation in general. The interpersonal relations are important (but still unnecessary) part of interaction within the «Noctown» community. It helps as well as the other theories to highlight the feeling of the presence of other similar people and a sense of understanding with each other is important. The other main goal serves to demonstrate that «owl» people are normal people rather than people with a disrupted schedule as it is accepted in society.
Framing theory exactly helps in understanding how we can possibly set this new agenda inside the brand mentioned in the previous sentence. Framing, in two words, is the prioritisation highlighting some of the aspects of it and illuminating the others. To begin with, we need to kind of de-frame some of the conventional standards such as only actively living during the daytime and sleeping the night in our case. So, we already select the idea and prioritise it by putting emphasis on it. Then we exclude the convictions about the wrongness of being the «owl». And then we go to the elaboration providing explanations from the science study about types of people that exist and the normality of «owl» people and also some statistics of people’s activity time would be helpful. Of course, it is happening mainly inside the «Noctown» association, but at the same time it also can get the attention about that externally by interacting with people outside of the community offline or online. Nonetheless, because of the usage of framing we can create such understanding and comfortable community by changing common norms. To sum it up a little bit, the main ideas of our brand have been framed like this: from «night is a sleeptime, pause in our lives» to «night is a different rhythm of life, time to be active, time to live».
To continue this thought, from the perspective of a Socio-cultural tradition «Noctown» brand uses symbols for reproduction the social order: to normalise non-conventional lifestyle and reshape already accepted norms about nighttime. The social practices (our everyday routines) are created due to the interaction and through day by day communication individuals create the shared meanings. Basically we provoke the conversations about it inside the brand association and by this kind of install the new norms. And it becomes part of the culture. All of the essentials of the brand are presented through theories that help with the understanding of a descriptive and visual perception of the brand.
Narrative paradigm talks about people as a storyteller who experience life as an ongoing narratives based on culture and characters. It helps to comprehend and re-create reality. So, as «Noctown» brand’s story is based on the irrational narrative that is common for particular people in order to evoke the emotions and feelings of belonging. And it serves not for reasons to explain why night activity is better but rather to propose the story where the individual can find themselves. And «owl» people is a categorisation of a storyteller who can find their own life story in others. So, phatic communication aimed to maintain relationships more personal than informative is essential for this brand community.
To continue the descriptive meaning of a brand, Symbolic convergence theory can add more understanding. Again, it is not about task-related communication. It has as a component of a theory a dramatising message, a narrative in our case that was explained in more details in the previous paragraph. Also it has group fantasies that refer to the group’s shared story about being an «owl». The sharing of these stories creates symbolic convergence and communication creates reality constructed symbolically. It helps to create common symbolic meanings such as being active at night is not a problem, but a special another world.
Semiotic tradition explains communication as a sharing meaning through a system of signs. There exists already «spoken» signs that are already understanded and used in the particular community. So, as a «Noctown» brand it has its own recognisable colours, typography, logo, merchandise, naming that associates with a brand. Design in general is a defined system of symbols that represent the «Noctown» and its meaning decodes by the person.
The last, but not least: ELM (Elaboration Likelihood Model) mostly explains the perception of a visual identity of a brand. So, choosing the biased elaboration helps to focus on the idea of a presented design of the brand: creating catchy images and forms, recognisable symbols without so deep and overloaded meanings behind it, impact through emotions and experience without pressure and obsessive arguments. It is aimed to activate a central route of the people in order to not only unconsciously consume it but also actively comprehend it which can mean that the individual really likes this content.
Bibliography and sources of images
Communication Theory: Bridging Academia and Practice, online course
Project theme basis (Maria Gorskaya’s project): https://portfolio.hse.ru/Project/257715
AI-generated illustrations made by prompts in Midjourney
AI-generated illustrations made by prompts in ChatGPT
