Outside Perspective Y25W41 - Sisterhoods and Support
It's world mental health day, the semiotic sisterhood, introducing Dionysis Livanis, and our curiosity stream and gigs.
It’s World Mental Health Day.
And whilst I believe that every day needs to have some aspect of recognition of how important our mental health is, today acts as a useful reminder of how important connection and community are.
In recent years, “social prescribing” has grown in popularity - instead of handing out pills for depression, a healthcare professional might suggest you go to a pottery class, or go bouldering, or join a volunteer group, or a walking club - built upon the insight that connection to others is, in many circumstances, an effective route to improving poor mental health.
And for those of us who work independently, the need to be well connected is even greater - so that we don’t feel like we’re working our way through challenges on our own - whether they be work challenges, or personal ones.
No matter how your mental health is right now - just a thank you, from me, for being part of our community and part of my support system, and based upon messages I get, I know how many of you also appreciate having a supportie space to connect with others - not everyone has that.
Perhaps take today to reach out to someone you’ve not spoken to in a while, and check-in with them too.
Matthew.
ps. Don’t forget - our annual survey on mental health in self-employment is open now. We need as many people to take part as possible. If you’ve already participated, thankyou! Please encourage your network to do the same.
Semiotic Sisterhood: From redundancy to cross-cultural meaning.
I spoke to
, founder of the Semiotic Sisterhood, a collective of women and nonbinary semioticians uncovering the codes and stories that connect people, culture, and brands.Hannah, tell us about the Semiotic Sisterhood – how did it come about, how does it operate, what are its goals?
The idea for Semiotic Sisterhood came from something very personal—my love of working alongside other women, particularly other mothers. The first seed was planted back in 2018 when a group of us were made redundant from the same agency. We started a WhatsApp group to stay connected and support each other through the transition. Later, during the pandemic, I worked on a toy project led by Emily Hayes—every single strategist on it was a mother, and the work felt unusually collaborative, creative, and sharply on brief.
In 2023, I was living in New Zealand, physically far from most of my professional network, and I launched the LinkedIn group to bring together women and nonbinary semioticians. Last year, with the help of Carla Moss, we spun out a smaller WhatsApp circle to create a more intimate and trusted space. We’re now a tight global network—spanning 15+ markets across North America, Europe, Asia-Pacific, and Latin America. We share industry events, professional advice, and maintain informal monthly calls to swap intel and generally discuss what’s happening in our markets.
I’ve had a few quiet ambitions for the group but haven’t forced anything. With three young children at home, time is limited, and I’ve tried to let the group grow at its own pace. This project is a testament to that: it took multiple, tenacious minds to get this essay collection into the world.
Your first drop, DECODE: Cultural Meaning Across Borders talks about cultural meaning across borders—talk us through the format, a collection of essays from your collective.
Our first publication was initiated by Carla Moss and brought to life through the design leadership of Ramona Daniel. True to the spirit of the Semiotic Sisterhood, the content wasn’t tightly curated—anyone in our WhatsApp circle was welcome to contribute, and seven of us did, each from a different region and cultural vantage point.
The essays span diverse themes—from the new codes of pleasure in Germany to Gen Z’s rebranding of Christianity in the UK, from the politicization of intimacy in the U.S. to the resurgence of traditional belief systems among Chinese and Taiwanese youth. We explore slogan tees as sites of cultural resistance, the rise of spiritual consumerism in China, and a broader cultural pivot away from rationality and information toward emotion, intuition, and feeling.
Rather than impose a single thesis, DECODE embraces multiplicity. This isn’t a polished trend report, but something looser and more alive. It offers a small, grounded snapshot of what’s catching our attention across different markets.
The global spread of your collective creates interesting opportunities to observe different sides of the same topic—do you think there’s value in multiple POVs in research and cultural insight reporting?
Yes. Having multiple cultural perspectives isn’t just a nice-to-have; it’s essential to producing nuanced, accurate insight. A symbol like the elephant might evoke wisdom and spiritual protection in parts of Asia, while to others it’s a charming childhood figure or a lingering colonial symbol. Context is everything and by working across borders, we can observe these tensions, contradictions, and adaptations in real time.
There is potential to unearth deep insights here that are super scalable. If you’re a brand or agency looking for rich, globally grounded insight, we’d love to hear from you!
There’s a rising tide of independent research, insight, and strategy collectives—what’s driving that, and how are they offering something new to clients and brands?
I can’t speak for the whole tide, but I do think we’re living in a culture of sleuthing and meaning mining—where everyone seems to be trying to decode what things really mean. Maybe it’s just a way to stay hopeful. The Semiotic Sisterhood are all seasoned professionals committed to their work personally and professionally.
For some of us, the choice to freelance or work independently isn’t just about autonomy—it is about flexibility and survival as a mother. Independent collectives like ours are born from necessity as much as desire. We make the work fit around real life, not the other way around.
There’s a temptation right now for brands to lean on AI to cut corners—to scrape the internet for patterns and call it insight. But without cultural expertise guiding those tools, you risk flattening meaning or missing what matters entirely. It’s a real risk. What we offer as a collective of culturally fluent thinkers is the ability to guide, question, and deepen those machine outputs. We also understand the need for slow, context-rich, even analogue research.
What’s on your radar right now—what themes are you looking to explore or are piquing your interest?
I write a Substack called
, where I explore motherhood and feminism through the lens of popular culture. It’s a space for tracking the cultural landscape, where I’ve written about everything from AI’s influence on domestic labor to shifting visual codes of counterculture, and the impossible standards imposed on women in films like The Substance and Nightbitch.I’m always consuming culture and thinking critically about what’s beneath the veneer. Lately, it’s a full-time job staying attuned to the shifts, contradictions, and pressure points!
» Connect with Hannah on Linkedin, or via her substack.
Curiosity Stream
» WARC’s Future of Strategy report dropped this week, with data echoing much of the commentary we’ve seen from others recently. Whilst this data heavily skews towards strategists in advertising agencies (which in itself is interesting), the stand-out insight was that Independents are sweeping up the higher-value higher-order work at the moment (that’s the perception from those in agencies, anyway). Do we agree? Whist the report isn’t public - there’s a great collection of articles and essays, prompted by the research, on the site available to all.
» Adrian Jarvis on Business Model Innovation - thanks Emily.
»
- at the intersection of gaming and politics - thanks Ann
» Dashboard culture vs camoflague culture - has our ability to reflect upon cultural moments disappeared? from
» Common Ground drop a new insight report into Trail Running
» AI transparency kills trust - what might that mean for brands (and for AI).
» Dispatches from 2035, from Brink
» NVIDIA and Monks create an entirely agentic ad - thanks Lea
Meet a Member: Dionysis Livanis
Every week, we aim to introduce a new member of the community. This week - Dionysis Livanis.
👋 Hi, I’m Dionysis, a brand strategist and creative director based in London, with more than 20 years’ experience delivering brand and design projects in the UK and internationally.
I’ve worked at Wolff Olins in Madrid, on the Olympic Games in Athens, and ran my own studio in Athens before moving to London in 2011. Here, I was creative director at WHAM, Redhouse, and Definition. At the last two, leading both creative and brand strategy.
For the past year, I’ve been working independently, partnering directly with clients or collaborating with other strategists and designers.
I’m proud of our recent rebrand and naming of the Portsmouth Historic Quarter (previously the Portsmouth Naval Base Property Trust). It’s a charity responsible for preserving and developing the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard.
We helped a shy, dated brand step out from behind the scenes and repositioned it as a confident, collaborative organisation. The work covered naming, strategy, and visual identity.
I love variety. Whether it’s helping a charity modernise its brand and raise its profile, or working with a B2B client to better align its brand with its goals and its audience’s needs.
I’m particularly interested in working with early-stage businesses, charities, and SMEs across sectors like B2B, education, real estate, hospitality, culture, and health.
Three things I’m Consuming
I’m reading Rory Sutherland’s Alchemy. A fresh take on brands and marketing through the lens of behavioural science, delivered in a wonderfully entertaining style.
I recently visited Tate Modern to see Do Ho Suh’s Walk the House exhibition. An incredible blend of fine art, architecture, craft, and a sense of belonging.
And my favourite podcast right now is The Rest is Politics. Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart are always so well-informed and speak with such clarity. Qualities I aim to bring to my own approach to strategy (or at least I try…)
» Connect with Dionysis Livanis on LinkedIn, or via the community.
Gigs.
Briefs discovered and curated from across the stratosphere.
Promote your brief - or tell us if you’ve found work via the project.
FEATURED:
Our friends at Craft are looking for someone with media strategy skills
Drop them a note
Social Media Strategist (NL)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20251010-emma.htmlFreelance Creative Strategist (NY,US)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20251010-creative-craft.htmlFreelance Brand Strategy Director (NY,US)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20251010-baird.htmlFreelance comms strategist / comms planning director (London,UK)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20251009-craft.htmlBrand Strategist for Dutch market hard seltzer brand (NL/Remote)
https://outsideperspective.co/gigs/20251007-asahi.html
That’s all for this week.
mk✌️