This is a picture of a pedestrian crossing as seen in our neighborhood. Nothing special… but take a closer look at the hand:
Isn’t it an awful drawing? Floppy, boneless, wrinkly, ‘wristless’ and with the most bizarre manicure I’ve ever seen! This hand is traumatizing enough to come and haunt you at night…
Seriously, I might be slightly exaggerating but seeing bad drawings like this makes me wonder who actually creates those signs that we see everywhere. And most importantly: where did they get the idea that they were good illustrators and how come were they commissioned by the City Council to do the work (because I’m assuming that the City is responsible for putting up the monstrosities)?
I truly believe that by paying a closer attention to details such as pedestrian crossing signs City Councils would contribute to making the towns nicer. Just as flower displays, parks and sculptures, these signs are part of the cityscapes and their design is as important, according to me, as the design of tourism brochure and attractions.
The best example I can think of would be of Berlin’s use of very special pedestrian symbols (named the “Ampelmann”) in the East part of the city. It was cool enough for me to want to take a picture with the actual man from the sign:
The Ampelmann is, in fact, so popular in Berlin that it has it’s own shop and website where tourists can buy merchandise featuring the weirdly shaped little guys. I don’t know about you, but I don’t think that the City of Hull could start selling t-shirts and mugs with the hideous hand printed on it…
Fake t-shirt...
Urgh…
