a book I read an essay by Roland Barthes quite interesting about the meaning of an image. It seemed that every designer, photographer or illustrator should at least read and be aware of it. Although the text deals with all of the picture, I think you can apply to other fields in which the image is the primary means of communication, such as design, graphic or not, and traditional illustration, drawing, ect ... Despite being a rather long text, I will make an effort and I will copy it as I read it. The essay was written in 1964 in a book entitled "The rhetoric of the image" . This essay
Barthes examines a print ad for a brand of pasta to reveal how an image can simultaneously operate at the level denotative and connotative . He said part of the problem of reading of the images is that they operate under an apparent analogy and not by a combination of phonemes (as in the case of the written word.) In other words, the images appear motivated or iconic signifiers. If we understand what an image means , in part due to the similarity with something else. That is the denotative meaning. However, Barthes argues that "never found (at least in advertising) image literal in its pure state. "In that context, any drawing or picture we are offered only as part of a message, part of someone's attempt to communicate something. This is the connotative meaning of the image, a culturally specific message that is superimposed denotative meaning, always present in the image. To decrypt the message, first need to determine how it was encoded , ie as a sign of right (a photograph or a packet of pasta) is empelo to denote something that is beyond its denotative value (ie the qualities of the pasta that the advertiser wants to stand out as desirable). Barthes stops on the color scheme ad and in the presence of green peppers, fresh tomatoes and garlic, which read as denoting italianidad , a significant attribute, we assume, by choosing a brand of toothpaste to buy. He also argues that the seemingly casual way in which these products stand out from the shopping cart indicates a bounty luck and abundance, the image on the buyer intended to evoke images of happy homes and prosperous, well-stocked table. These features are part of the constructional photography of strategic choices is the publisher and the photographer to increase the power natural that the image has to suggest and persuade.
Thus, Photographic image leads to a kind of paradox, since, in the words of Barthes, "photography [...] under absolute nature analog, seems actually be a message without a code [...] because of all the types of image, only the picture has the power to transmit information (literally) without shape using discontinuous signs and rules of transformation. " The written word works because we know that letters represent sounds and sounds, the combined according to certain rules, denote certain concepts. The picture, however, seems to be a significant natural, unmediated, direct representation and intact object or concept means. "In the Photography, Barthes continues, "the relationship between signifier and signified is not transformation (as in written language) but record, and the absence of code obviously strengthens the myth of the natural in the picture: the scene is there, captured mechanically and not humanly (the mechanical here is a guarantee of objectivity). The interventions of man in the photograph (framing, distance, lighting, focus, speed) actually belong to the plane of connotation. "
So only when we pay attention to how a photograph is, in fact, the product a action and certain human decisions, starting to be unraveled its codification, the connotative aspect. And, for Barthes, the photographic message uniqueness is its ability to silence your own coding, make us forget that was built to convey a message: "To the extent that does not involve any code denoted image naturalizes [...] the symbolic message, semantic artifice becomes guilty of connotation [...] Although the poster Panzani [ad photography pasta] is full of symbols in the picture is, however [...] a kind of being-there natural objects: nature seems spontaneously the scene depicted. The simple pre-open systems semantics is replaced by a surreptitious way seudoverdad, the absence of desintelectualiza the message code as it appears in nature found signs of culture. "
photography gives us a clear message whose constructional perhaps voluntarily, we can not comprehend. The result is a signifier, a way of producing meanings, as opposed to rhetoric or semantic systems, gives the impression of nature emerge and, therefore represent the truth.
Barthes
The purpose of this essay is to show the artificiality of what at first glance it seems natural, and suggest how a constructed image, as a word or phrase, may be encoded or loaded meaning. These ideas are applied equally to the images we see on television, and therefore have been substantially manipulated, manufactured, fabricated and distorted, but we tend to receive passively, as if it were reliable indices of nature and reality.
Thus ends the test. With him I just want you to be able, if you like these themes the treaty of images, photography and such, not always because we do not like something means it is ugly or that represented evil. Mean for us the connotative meaning of a picture is not pretty, or you simply is aesthetically ugly, but for the author's image can be the nicest thing ever has managed to capture. I put this following a conversation with an individual design. I hope that the test has proved interesting.
To end this post, I'll leave the evolution of one of my designs, so you can see it changing, but many say they do not have a job either, but for me it is one of the best design work I've done. The quality is a bit bad to be gif, sorry.
some necklaces and bracelets are made of a red thread which hangs a 'wishbone ', or what is the same as a bone of the sternum. 
is an idea of \u200b\u200bBeatriz Mira Hafner, worth 18 euros and you can get through their website: 
What do you think?, Do you think that is the best accessory "cool" this season? 
Do you already wanted to fall? 
with Dolores Promesas dress and Louis Vuitton bag. Gorgeous as always! 
blogger and designer Gala González of Karen Miller. 
Laura Sanchez gorgeous black dress. Yolanda 
Sexton, director of Vogue Spain, with the event T-shirt and a skirt of Nina Ricci. 
XD Well I 
