After reading Barthes Rhetoric of image I had a couple of goes at using his method to look at photographs. I looked at a bill board advert and then just chose a photograph from my own collection. Doing this was enlightening. I look at pictures differently after doing so.

He likes structure so puts what he sees into boxes in a table. It makes looking at images and or text easier to break down. Doing this helped focus my mind on even the initially simple image as shown below.

For this exercise I have chose an image that doesn’t have a photograph at all. I did this as I was interested if the technique would work for a simple piece of typology. I think it does. I chose Coca Cola`s advert “You don’t have to stay between the lines”.

It is a bold image that leaps out of the page and appears very simple at first glance. However when you look it is a sophisticated image with a number of signs and signifiers. The table below shows the ones I saw. Maybe you may see more.

Sign	Signifier
Red and White	Company colours recognised the world over.
Bottle Shape	Instantly recognised even though most product delivered in cans.
Usual Simple lines broken.	Implies you can break the rules. Hint at other products available.
Bottle shape made of dashed lines.	Subtle hint at lines crossed rules broken edgy and maybe risky.
Hint at choice	Made me think of other options or alternative products in the range.
Vignetting	Focussed the eye on the product in the center of the image.