O estilo das ilustrações jornalísticas

Abstract

In this paper I combine Journalistic Theories and Charles Sanders Peirce’s Semiotics in an attempt to understand ‘style’ in the professional practice of illustration in daily printed newspapers. Through the notion of sinsigns and by means of interviews and follow up to productive routines I tried to observe what exactly characterizes such practice. As the rules on which this practice is based are revealed, I notice the existence of legisigns. It is also important to take into account that this kind of work deals with several qualisigns in its production and results. Style can thus be defined as a set of procedures that characterizes an illustrator’s work in a certain moment of his/her production. At the same time it characterizes , symbolically, an editorial space and from this perspective it generates legisigns. It is possible to observe that illustrators fear being labeled and, at the same time, try to define their own personal style. Editors consider versatility a valuable trait in illustrators and this is contradictory with the notion of a style. As illustration is something which is defined on its day-by-day practice, it carries within itself everyday a “Replica†of something which may go through changes on the level of its general definition, in the logical order of Thirdness. Style may be both a limitation as well as the possibility of freedom of expression, when it represents a conquest based on one’s own intellectual and operational capabilities. The constitution of a style depends on self-awareness, taking into account one’s limitations and potentialities. Overcoming limitations, however, is always a possibility to be considered. Style in illustrations may be perceived through the illustrator’s lines or through the intellectual conceptions which are constitutional of one’s way of drawing. The line is of a more sensitive nature, in the order of Firstness. In order to identify it, it is necessary to see illustration as a qualisign. The conceptual part of style is identified in comparison with other drawings to the printed press, cultural professional references or art history.