In New York the other day I spotted a sign for wheelchair access to a school.

New wheelchair symbol

I love it showing people in wheelchairs doing something from the icon, even if it only seems to represent physical movement. I appreciate that not everyone in a wheelchair has as much physical control. Compare to the more established, more static International Symbol of Access. People in wheelchairs can do versus a sense of being immobile.

Two interesting things came out of posting this picture on Twitter:

  1. Mark Morton made me aware he “got management to use this sign when we repainted the disabled parking spaces at work”. Mark also pointed me in the direction of The Accessible Icon Project, with some background on the symbol and also the chance to buy stickers and stencils of the icon. The revised symbol was born out of hacking existing signs with stickers. Well worth a read.

  2. A little later Ariel Kennan gave me a heads up to an article with the background to this symbol being used in New York (where I saw it). Basically using this symbol is now the law in New York state.

All interesting stuff.

Original source – Simon Wilson

Comments closed