My last blog post mentioned Roland Barthes' 1977 article, "Rhetoric of the Image." I wanted to give you the lowdown on his main ideas that are still extremely relevant today. I would argue they are even more relevant with our digital revolution and designers creating many different types of advertising.
Barthes' argument surrounds how meaning gets into images, particularly in advertising. For his argument, he analyzes the messages that an ad may contain and looks at a specific example of a Panzani ad. Advertising images are intentional. He states that the signifieds of the message must be communicated clearly and often they are expressed emphatically. In his analysis, he separates the linguistic message into denotational and connotational and further separates it from the image altogether. Hence, he presents three messages for the analyzed ad; the linguistic message, a coded iconic message and a non-coded iconic message.
Barthes did a fantastic job of breaking down the Panzani ad into its separate meanings. I never thought that an image could be deconstructed into so many varied meanings and messages. The title of the article is perfectly matched to the content of the article. Rhetoric is a term that I continually struggle with to fully understand its meaning. However, the way Barthes uses it, makes the concept make sense in how advertising images are rhetoric. He has inspired me to deconstruct my own design work (particularly ads) and the work of others.
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