What Is Post-Branding? : How to Counter Fundamentalist Marketplace Semiotics

Part design experiment, part critical theory, part how-to manual, What Is Post-Branding? offers a creative counter to branding's neoliberal orthodoxy

Brands aren't just intruding on culture, they are our culture: they are the sponsored mechanisms for constructing and manipulating meaning and human identity. But should we cede such a fundamental human need to the market? If not, why not, and is there an alternative?

Now available in a hardcover edition, What Is Post-Branding? is a work of "practical theory" divided in four parts. The first section, DIS-BRANDED, consists of 20 short page-long chapters exposing the ideological underbelly and real-world impact of branding. The second, Mixed Messages, is a provocative visual essay illuminating the texts' main themes. The third section, Manual, presents a framework for a critical alternative to corporate branding, humorously appropriating vintage instructional diagrams as a brand manual satire. This section also includes examples of contemporary projects that have implemented post-branding principles. The book concludes with Context, which features a conversation with cultural theorist Brian Holmes and a discussion with design historian Steven Heller.

Format/pages: hardback / 272 pages

ISBN: 9789083682013

Publisher: Set Margins'

Year: 2026