Contrasting food-related rules

This is yet another sign in the Lippulaiva library in Espoo, Finland. The sign, located in the children's playing area, instructs people to not eat their food in the play area but rather in the kitchen. This is communicated both visually and with the standard Finnish triplet of multilingual communication: Finnish, Swedish and English.

The visual component is quite straightforward. We have simplistic silhouettes of fast food (a burger and a capped drink with a straw) with a red slashed circle on top of them. These kind of fast-food items seem to often serve as the icons for generic food.

The textual parts are also interesting, with the Three languages are clearly ranked as Finnish the first one and with biggest font, followed by (below the image) Swedish and English in diminishing sized fonts. The positioning of the Finnish text on top of the visual component and the Swedish and English below also does a grouping of the languages in what I would read as "Finnish vs. all-the-rest". Though this might be less about segregation and more about the maker of the sign wanting to do a balanced visual effect of bent text around the visual part, and having to split three languages to two sides.¹

What caught my attention here was the juxtaposition of the text and the image. The image says "NO", while the text describes where to eat. To my eyes this creates a fun juxtaposition of positive and negative signals.