The City of New York has decided to update the familiar blue and white ‘handicapped’ logo with a newer design created by a team from Gordan College, Massachusetts.
The old logo, which features a stick figure in a wheelchair, has been criticized as portraying the handicapped as “passive” and even “helpless”.
The Gordon-created logo hopes to change all that. It is dynamic, with a stick figure leaning forward and active.
Victor Calise, commissioner of the Office for People With Disabilities in New York, calls the new design “a forward-moving thing” and in contrast, the logo now in use is “stagnant”.
Elaborating, he said, “There’s no movement, and it makes people seem like they don’t do much with their lives”.
Proponents of the new logo hope that its success will be able to kickstart a discussion and re-evaluation of disability issues.
The old logo
[via The Chronicle Of Higher Education, image via Shutterstock]