Roland Barthes’ “Rhetoric of the Image“ essay from Image – Music – Text, Translated by Stephen Heath. Hill and Wang, 1977. (excerpt)

Questions/Prompts:

  • How do images hold and convey meaning?
  • What are they trying to say?
  • How do they persuade and influence us?

Images hold and convey meaning because images are the most natural way for us to process information making it easy and quick to recall information. In this image we see an advertisement for pasta. The first thing I notice from this advertisement is the bright red background that grabs your attention, which also reminds me of tomato sauce used for pasta. We then see the ingredients used to make pasta, which only consist of the spaghetti itself, cheese and some fruits and vegetables. I think this advertisement is trying to say that their pasta is fresh, uses simple ingredients, easy to make and that their brand is better than their competitors. They persuade and influence us with their design elements used in the advertisement, drawing our attention with the bright red background, and then showcasing the simple ingredients used to make pasta and convincing us to buy their product.