Communication theory: Persimmon
Official Logo of Persimmon
Communication theory in the field of design
Communication theory studies how people create, transmit, interpret, and transform meanings through interactions. Moreover it explores how communication shapes culture and society.
«Communication — process of meaning creation through interaction and symbolic exchange of messages within the context» [1]
Communication is present in many areas of our lives, as it forms the basis of familiar processes. For example, communication theory is also present in design. Design is an act of communication, in which the designer not only creates an attractive image but also conveys a visual message with a specific purpose. The designer considers the key aspects upon which communication is built, and subsequently, design becomes a strategic communication tool capable of attracting the attention of specific individuals to a particular goal or task. For instance, design can help a company or brand convey its core values to the viewer or consumer, engage the viewer, and persuade them to purchase a product or service. However, to achieve this, it is crucial to correctly formulate the communication idea that needs to be conveyed to the consumer. Communication theory can help in developing this idea and the method of its delivery.
Fisher’s narrative paradigm posits that individuals comprehend the world through stories, thereby framing communication itself as a narrative process. [1] Correspondingly, design can function as a storytelling medium, articulating a brand’s narrative through visual language to amplify its emotional impact and foster viewer empathy.
The transmission of meaning in communication relies on symbols — both verbal and non-verbal. Within the realm of design, these symbolic vehicles are formal elements: shape, composition, color, and typography.
Context is a critical consideration in design, as in any communicative act, since it fundamentally shapes the interpretation of a message. Equally significant is the medium of delivery. The perception of a message varies whether it is encountered on a website, a mobile application, or a billboard, necessitating a tailored design approach for each channel.
Communication theory provides a framework for aligning design with user expectations and behaviors, thereby ensuring the intended communicative objectives are met. Furthermore, it informs strategies for cultivating customer relationships on social media platforms. Here, design serves as the core of visual engagement, where its primary roles are to capture attention and stimulate interaction.
This project will investigate the application of communication theory within the context of a handmade jewelry brand.
Presentation of brand for a general audience
About the Brand
«persimmon» — handmade jewelry brand.
Founded by Alina Veytsel in March 2025, the brand’s journey began with her crafting pendants featuring original clay characters by hand. She subsequently expanded her designs by incorporating mineral beads. Alina continues to explore new creative formats, and the brand’s current collection encompasses a range of stylish pieces, including statement mono-earrings, cord necklaces, pendants, bag charms, and rings.
The jewelry is distinguished by a unique stylistic identity, consciously constructed upon a foundation of contradictions and contrasts. The pieces harmoniously blend cute and dark aesthetics, juxtaposing smooth, rounded forms with sharp, irregular ones, and combining hand-sculpted clay figurines with natural stones. This deliberate fusion of disparate elements creates a striking and unconventional accent for any personal style.
The brand explicitly targets a young demographic, primarily teenagers and young adults aged 16 to 30. This life stage is characterized by a pronounced tendency for stylistic experimentation. Individuals within this cohort are actively engaged in curating a distinct personal identity, seeking out unique accessories and jewelry as key components of their self-expression.
Alina Veytsel, Founder of Persimmon
Brand Mission
The Persimmon brand strives to emphasize the beauty and value of individuality. The jewelry brand offers the opportunity to acquire a special and unique accessory that can complement a person’s style, highlight their uniqueness, and help them find a new means of self-expression.
«Be unique and unlike others, in this lies your beauty» is the message the brand conveys to its customers.
The unconventional design of the clay characters showcases the courage and beauty of being different from others, of combining different facets of one’s personality, and of experiencing diverse emotions.
The brand’s mission is to help young people express themselves and emphasize their own uniqueness through an accessory.
Necklaces from the Persimmon collection
Brand Values
The Persimmon brand is built upon and communicates several core values:
• Celebrating Uniqueness and Craftsmanship. The brand places paramount value on the distinctiveness of each piece. The handmade nature of the production ensures that every item is singular, infused with a sense of dedicated care and attention that distinguishes it from mass-produced goods.
• Empowering Individuality. Persimmon champions the individuality of its wearers. By offering jewelry that is inherently special and one-of-a-kind, the brand provides the perfect means for customers to accentuate their personal style or character. This philosophy directly responds to the contemporary market’s growing demand for personalized and customizable items.
• Facilitating Self-Expression. The brand advocates for freedom of self-expression. The hand-sculpted clay characters adorning the pieces often depict specific emotions, enabling the wearer to non-verbally communicate their own feelings or mood through their chosen accessory.
• Promoting Versatility and Customization. Persimmon jewelry is designed for multifunctionality and personal transformation. Key pieces, such as pendants, are accompanied by various fittings, allowing the consumer to reconfigure a single item into multiple forms — be it a pendant, a statement earring, or a bag or phone charm — thus maximizing its utility and personal relevance.
Carabiner Keychain & Pendant Variants from the Persimmon collection
Presentation for a professional audience
The brand creates unique accessories with individual stories. Persimmon is open to collaborations with other brands that value craftsmanship and aims to expand its presence in the accessories market.
Brand Identity
Brand Color Palette: The color scheme plays a significant role in the brand’s visual component, reflecting the core idea of blending contrasting aesthetics.
The Persimmon Brand Color Palette
Core of the Jewelry: The foundation of the jewelry consists of pendants with expressive character images employing a simple, concise color palette of black and white. The exclusive use of these two colors in creating all clay pieces establishes stylistic unity while allowing for diversity in shapes and painting.
Accents and Contrasts: Vibrant colors, primarily cool shades, are actively implemented. They appear solely in the assembled elements of accessories and the brand’s visual design. Together with the black and white clay pendants, they bring out the contrast and set the overall mood of the pieces.
A pendant and ring from the Persimmon collection
Design of Emotions: The jewelry features stylized character faces expressing a wide range of emotions, frequently leaning towards melancholy. Each piece is an embodiment of feelings that resonate with its wearer.
Pendant Designs by Persimmon
Jewelry-Making Techniques
Persimmon jewelry may be of interest to other designers and artisans, as we utilize a unique creation technique. Visually similar to ceramic pieces, the base material is polymer clay rather than ceramic mass. The pendants are crafted from white material and undergo a single firing at 130°C. Next comes the painting stage, during which each pendant is hand-painted with acrylic and gouache. The final stage before assembly involves coating the pieces with UV resin for secure fixation and creating a smooth, glossy surface. Additionally, some pieces are enhanced with natural stones, silvery chains, and plush elements.
The painting process for Persimmon pendants
Current Brand Promotion Channels
Collaborations: The brand is open to collaborations with handicraft artisans as well as other brands creating unique clothing or accessories. For example, a collaboration with the plush toy and keychain brand Kiara Plush resulted in a joint collection of figurines that reflected the aesthetics of both brands.
Collaboration with Kiara Plush
Cooperation with Boutiques: Persimmon selects concept stores to showcase its products in locations that support the promotion of handcrafted items. Collaborations have already taken place with the following stores: «Zanoschivost'» (Moscow), «Prizrachnaya Polka» (Moscow), «Polka Chudes» (Krasnodar, Samara), which has expanded audience reach and increased brand awareness. Furthermore, Persimmon is open to new partnership opportunities.
Persimmon’s Collaboration with Handmade Jewelry Stores
Brand Growth Potential
• The brand is promoted on social media, with Telegram currently serving as the primary platform. There are also plans to develop and grow our audience on other platforms.
• Plans are in place to launch a dedicated online store website, with a focus on visual content and interactive engagement with the audience.
• Regular expansion of the product range is on-going, with the introduction of new materials and techniques.
• We actively participate in offline art events, contributing to audience expansion and communication with other craft artists while creating opportunities for future collaboration.
Persimmon is participating in the Art Market
Persimmon holds practical value for the professional community. Its success is based on three key principles: a clear concept, a unified visual system, and a proven model for engaging with the target audience. For the handmade industry and independent jewelers, the Persimmon project is interesting as a prime example of a recognizable style. It showcases how an out-of-the-box combination of materials (polymer clay, natural stones, metal, textiles) and techniques (sculpting, hand-painting, resin work) can create a product with a unique character, opening the door to collaborations with other artists and designers.
A pendant from the Persimmon collection
Communication theory as a basis for creating brand presentations
The communication strategy for «Persimmon» was built on the application of theories described in the course materials. The brand strategy was developed using a combination of theoretical «lenses», which allowed us to adapt the message, channels, and meanings to the specific tasks of addressing both broad and professional audiences.
Narrative Paradigm (Walter Fisher):
This is the most important «lens» for communicating with customers. The theory posits that people are by nature «storytelling animals», and we perceive the world not through logic but through narrative rationality (truthful and coherent stories). Instead of simply listing the characteristics of the jewelry, the presentation tells the brand’s story. Its plot: the creation of a unique style through the combination of opposites (the cute and the gloomy). Each piece of jewelry with a «face» becomes not just a product but an episode in this story, with which a person can relate their own experience and feelings.
Sociocultural Tradition (Robert Craig):
According to this tradition, communication is not merely an exchange of information but the joint creation of the social world: its rules, meanings, and, most importantly for us, group identity. For Persimmon, this means its main task is not to sell an accessory but to provide the audience with powerful symbols (those very «faces» and contrasting aesthetics) with which they can build and display their uniqueness. When a person buys and wears such jewelry, they make an important social gesture: they visually declare their belonging to a community of creative, introspective youth who value handmade craftsmanship, non-conformity, and emotional depth. Persimmon actively participates in shaping the cultural code of its target audience by providing them with tools for self-expression and social navigation.
Semiotic Tradition (Robert Craig):
While the sociocultural tradition explains why communication is needed, semiotics reveals how it works — through the exchange and interpretation of signs. The Persimmon brand can be viewed as a thoughtfully designed semiotic system where each element carries a specific meaning:
• The black-and-white «face» is a sign of the inner world, drama, and foundation of personality.
• The bright cold accents in beads and packaging are a sign of individuality, emotional expression, and modernity.
• The facial expression itself is the most important sign. Persimmon deliberately does not specify whether it is sad or pensive. This sign is open to interpretation, allowing everyone to project their own mood onto it, making the jewelry deeply personal.
Concept of Affordances (James Gibson / Donald Norman):
The concept of affordances describes the perceived possibilities for action that an object or environment provides. If the previous theories answered the questions «what story to tell» and «what meanings to embed», then affordances show how the very design of the product and brand suggests the next steps to the audience. In the Persimmon strategy, these possibilities were intentionally embedded:
• Affordance of Public Participation: the photogenic, contrasting aesthetic of the brand, with its expressive «faces» and bright accents, literally «suggests» being photographed and shared on social media. Thus, customers unconsciously become co-authors of the brand, spreading its visual code and engaging their own audience.
• Affordance of Customization: the variety of forms (pendants, earrings, rings) and the designed modularity (the ability to use a pendant as a mono-earring or a bag charm) provide the user with tools for independent image creation. This transforms them from a passive buyer into an active co-designer, directly supporting the brand’s stated values of individuality and self-expression.
Two-Way Symmetrical Model of PR (James Grunig):
This model formed the basis for dialogue with the professional audience (partners, retailers). Unlike outdated approaches (manipulation or mere informing), it aims at long-term, mutually beneficial relationships through dialogue and mutual understanding. Therefore, in the presentation for professionals, we did not push the product but demonstrated: readiness for collaborations («we are open»), transparency and expertise (details of technology), mutual benefit (examples of successful placement in stores). This creates a foundation for trust and partnership, rather than a one-time transaction.
«Communication Theory: Bridging Academia and Practice», HSE online-course (дата обращения: 10.12.2025)
persimmon // Telegram URL: https://t.me/alikveytsel (дата обращения: 10.12.2025)
