Assignment 2 (Less is More)

For this assignment, we are supposed to create a sign to be put in school/public context. It can be a sign to represent a location or an action.

I decided to do a sign that says "no chopping of seats in lecture theatres". I was kinda "inspired" to do this because I have a friend who hates people chopping seats.

This is the original picture I took in the lecture theatre.


Here's my abstraction process (you can click on the pic to enlarge it). Basically I used simplification and zooming-in to focus on the main objects. I chose to develop on the waterbottle because I think that it is the most common object that people use to chop their seats.

However, some feedback I got was that people might think that the sign is telling them not to leave their belongings behind. So I am considering to change it to a bag instead (because people are really unlikely to leave their bags behind).


Here's the final design. Of course there will still be improvements. I am considering removing the writing table because the main message I am trying to convey is not to place items on the chair to chop seats.

I think this sign can be pasted on the chairs in the middle of the lecture theatre, because it is rather irritating for people to walk into the middle especially when the lecture has started. So people should not chop seats that are in the middle of the lecture theatre (well, that's just one possibility).


I feel that this assignment is quite neutral to me (meaning that it is not really enjoyable nor is it very dislikeable). But I feel that it is quite interesting in the sense that we can simplify an object so much and still keep the main essence of it. Everytime I draw something, I tend to focus on all the details of it. Now that I have learnt some abstraction processes, I realised that with only a few details, the audience can actually understand what the object is.