This study examines the shift in graphic design from aesthetic organisation to social and cultural critique within postmodernism. The main aim is to show how photography's claim to "objective reality" is undermined by graphic design's fictional interventions, creating new meanings. The discussion also explores how photographic images become tools of resistance and critique when text is added. The methodology includes descriptive and visual rhetorical analysis, using qualitative approaches. The theoretical framework is built on Roland Barthes' concept of "anchorage" (ancrage), which exerts control over the polysemy (the multiplicity of meanings) of the photographic image. Based on this theoretical foundation, the study analyses how text manipulates the raw data presented by the photograph and directs the viewer toward a specific ideological reading. Utilising a purposive sampling method, the works of Lorna Simpson and Barbara Kruger are examined through criteria such as the text-image hierarchy, the ideological function of typographic choices, and shifts in meaning. The analysis compares Simpson’s texts, which render narrative gaps visible, with Kruger’s typography, which subverts advertising aesthetics.