Communication Theory: Plantea
Communication theory in the field of design
In design, communication theory shifts our focus from creating objects to creating meaningful experiences. A designed artefact is never just a physical solution; it is a message, a system of signs, and an actor within a broader social context. When designers shape a product or a visual identity, they are essentially encoding meanings that users will later decode through their personal and cultural lenses. Design becomes a structured conversation between creator and audience, mediated through form, material, narrative, and interaction.
Because communication is always contextual, the same design solution can be interpreted differently depending on users’ expectations, values, and previous experiences. This is why understanding communication theory is critical for design practice: it allows us to anticipate how meaning is produced, how it travels between sender and receiver, and how noise or ambiguity can distort it. In this perspective, visual aesthetics, tone of voice, materiality, and even the user journey function as communicative tools. They frame how the user understands not only the product, but also themselves in relation to it.
Designers become not only creators of form, but curators of symbolic systems, orchestrating the interplay between verbal and non-verbal messages. Through this lens, design is not decoration but sense-making: it organizes information, translates abstract ideas into perceivable experiences, and helps people navigate everyday life with clarity and emotional resonance.
Plantea: tea for plants
Plantea — a botanical tea fertilizer — is an imaginary brand built around a simple idea: plant care becomes easier when it feels familiar and emotionally approachable. The product — a natural fertilizer presented in a tea-bag format — uses a recognizable everyday ritual to communicate simplicity and calmness. More than a functional solution, it is constructed as an object of communication. The product translates the complexity of plant nutrition into a familiar symbolic form: the tea bag. Instead of presenting plant nutrition as a technical task, Plantea frames it as a gentle interaction. Through this transformation, Plantea becomes a metaphor, a narrative, and a bridge between natural care and everyday rituals.
Presentation for a general audience
The Idea
Taking care of plants shouldn’t feel complicated. Plantea turns plant nutrition into a simple, familiar ritual — just like making tea.
What We Offer
A natural plant fertilizer in the format of a tea bag. Drop one bag into warm water — and your watering can is ready.
Why It Matters
Healthy plants need more than just water. Plantea helps by:
• improving the quality of water used for watering
• supporting overall plant health
• stimulating growth and blooming
Картинка (Упаковка)
Картинка (Стол, на котором стоит лейка, растения, чайные пакетики)
How It Works
1. Place one Plantea bag into a watering can
2. Add warm water
3. Let it steep
4. Water your plants as usual
Benefits for You
• No measuring, no mistakes — one bag = one perfect portion
• Safe for all plants — the gentle formula won’t burn roots
• Odorless — unlike many fertilizers
• Fast and effortless
Картинка (заваривание чая)
Who It’s For
For everyone who wants healthier plants without stress:
• beginners
• busy people
• home gardeners
• plant lovers
What Makes Plantea Special
Plantea makes plant care intuitive, pleasant, and accessible. Just brew, water — and watch your plants thrive.
Картинка (девушка в уютной домашней обстановке ухаживает за растениями / солнечный подоконник с растениями и чайником чая) Ниже примерный вайб, что-то в теплых оттенках
Brand Promise
Caring for your plants should feel as easy as making tea. With Plantea, every watering becomes a calm and familiar ritual rather than a stressful task. We take the guesswork out of plant care so you can enjoy watching your plants grow, naturally and effortlessly.
Call to Action
Try Plantea and bring a little calm into your plant care routine. Make watering simpler, safer, and more enjoyable for you and your plants. Start today and watch your home become a little greener, one cup at a time.
Presentation for a professional audience
Project Overview
Plantea is a concept-driven product that reframes plant fertilization as an accessible, calming ritual. Our goal was to design not only a functional solution, but a coherent communication system that simplifies user understanding and encourages intuitive interaction.
Design Challenge
Traditional fertilizers often create:
• cognitive overload (measurements, ratios, instructions),
• anxiety about harming the plant,
• associations with chemicals and unpleasant odors,
• unclear dosage and inconsistent application.
Plantea seeks to redesign this experience through familiar symbolic cues and clear communication.
(картинка)
Strategic Insight
Plant owners want healthier plants, but they also want:
• confidence in caring for them,
• straightforward instructions,
• products that feel natural and non-technical,
• experiences aligned with their daily routines.
We identified a gap between user desire for simplicity and the complexity of existing solutions.
Concept Foundation
Plantea introduces fertilization through the metaphor of brewing tea. The format is chosen not for novelty, but for its strong communicative value:
• universally familiar action,
• associations with calmness and warmth,
• straightforward and easily decoded steps.
The product becomes a narrative of ease rather than a scientific procedure.
(мой старый плакат, можно заменить на что-то подобное про сравнение со сложными удобрениями либо на иконки с простым процессом заваривания чая)
Interaction Design
The process mirrors a familiar daily action:
1. Place the bag in warm water
2. Wait a few minutes
3. Water your plants
By aligning plant care with an established routine, we reduce decision fatigue and increase user confidence.
Semiotic Rationale
The visual and material language uses symbolic cues to reduce perceived complexity:
• Tea-bag form — simplicity, domesticity, comfort
• Soft colors, natural textures — safety and botanical origin
• Rounded typography — approachability
• Minimal instructions — removal of noise in decoding
Every signifier supports a single message:
This is easy and natural
Картинка с природной цветовой палитрой (зеленый-коричневый) плюс логотип
Visual Communication Strategy
The identity system uses:
• restrained color palette inspired by leaves and soil
• clean, breathable layouts
• iconography for effortless comprehension
• warm photography focusing on home environments
The visual language communicates clarity and reliability while avoiding the coldness of scientific aesthetics.
Снова какая-то картинка с ца
Audience Positioning
Primary users: beginner and intermediate plant owners Communication tone: gentle, reassuring, non-technical Key value propositions: convenience, safety, naturalness, odor-free experience
Plantea is designed as an integrated communication experience. The product, its visuals, and its messaging work together to translate plant care into a familiar, low-stress ritual. The system’s coherence ensures that users understand the intended meaning immediately and intuitively.
Communication theory as basis for presentations
The development of Plantea’s communication system was grounded in the theoretical frameworks presented in the communication course. Instead of treating design as a set of aesthetic decisions, the project approached it as a structured process of meaning-making. Communication theory helped clarify how the brand should speak, through which symbols, in what tone, and how its messages should adapt to different audiences. Both presentations —the consumer-oriented and the professional are outcomes of this theory-driven approach.
Encoding vs. Decoding
The course explains that communication depends on how a message is encoded by the sender and decoded by the audience. This guided the structure of the two presentations:
General audience: simple language, familiar imagery, emotional reassurance.
Professional audience: analytical structure, terminology, design logic.
Different audiences decode messages differently, so the encoding had to change while keeping the core meaning consistent.
Context Matters
Meaning depends on context. For consumers, the context is everyday home care and a desire for simplicity. For professionals, it is critical evaluation and understanding design rationale.
This difference shaped tone, presentation style, and the depth of information.
Semiotics and Symbolic Choices
Semiotic principles informed the use of the tea bag as Plantea’s main symbol. It signals ease, calmness, and familiarity — without using complex explanations.
•In the consumer presentation, these signs work on an emotional level.
•In the professional one, their communicative role is explained more explicitly.
Rhetorical Strategies
Both presentations use persuasion but in different ways:
Consumers: pathos — feelings of comfort, trust, simplicity.
Professionals: logos and ethos — logic, structure, justification.
Adapting rhetoric helped each audience engage with the message in a way suited to their expectations.
Reducing Cognitive Load
The socio-psychological perspective helped shape the product narrative as «easy and safe.» To reduce cognitive effort:
• the general presentation avoids technical terms
• instructions are minimal
• visuals are calm and clear
The professional presentation explains why this simplicity matters and how it helps users.
Cultural Familiarity
The tea ritual works because it is culturally familiar and emotionally positive. This helps the product integrate into everyday routines and reframes plant care as something gentle and intuitive.
Consumers feel this symbol directly, professionals receive an explanation of its cultural relevance.
Minimizing Noise
Following the cybernetic model, both presentations remove «noise» — unnecessary complexity that might confuse the audience. Clear visuals, short steps, and a calm design language support immediate understanding.
Coherence Across All Touchpoints
A key idea from the course is that communication works best when it is coherent.
Plantea’s form, tone, visuals, and narrative consistently communicate one message: plant care can be simple, natural, and comforting.
The consumer presentation demonstrates this through experience, the professional one through explanation.
Какая-то общая картинка или гифка
Communication Theory: Bridging Academia and Practice // Smart LMS URL: https://edu.hse.ru/course/view.php?id=133853 (дата обращения: 11.12.2025).
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