Barbie.com

Representational

In this screen capture of the Barbie.com front page, you can see that there are three levels of meaning or communication being directed to the end user. The first level of level is Representational and is done through the major element of the Barbie Fairy located in the middle of the page, the Hero element as it were. Additionally, there are three subordinate elements located near the top of page.  They are a Bed, Nightstand, and “Décor” which are also designed to attract the viewer’s attention, but placed in such a way as to not detract from the main point of the page, which is Barbie Fairy.

The Barbie Fairy is a highly rendered likeness intended to create a fantasy that is more easily imagined within the viewer’s mind. It is designed to capture you and entirely draw you in to the world that Fairy’s occupy.

The Barbie Fairy is the subject matter, or the focus of the design. I would say that the other two levels exist to support her narrative to the end user.

Abstract
The foreground grass, mid-ground water, and background sparkling waterfall are all abstract elements and create the structure of this design.  These elements together create an emotionally soothing or magical feel within the view and communicates this is the land in which the Barbie Fairy, as all fairy’s, lives. These elements give this page it’s structure by creating a space to support the header, saving the body of the page for the story of the Barbie Fairy and pushing the footer to the bottom. Essentially it separates the various elements of the page. 

Symbolic

The games, video, fashion, etc. are all symbolic icons representing what they do or what you will find if you click on them and as such they create the major navigational element for this page. The Mattel and Barbie logos are symbols of the corporation and the toy division within the corporation. The navigational icons are actionable and draw the user into making choices or decision about where they want to be or what they want to do within the world of Barbie. The corporate and toy logos are acting mostly product identifiers simply informing the end user where they are and what they’re looking at. Since all symbols represent something, in this design the symbols are either culturally significant identifiers or they represent actions to take the user somewhere else within this site. For example, if you click on the game icon, you are performing an action that will take you to an action. But the Barbie and Mattel logos symbolize the product and corporation so if you were to click on either of those you would be taking action to find out more about those two elements.