Does the Universal Symbol for Disability Need to Be Rethought?
Two designers suggest turning the symbol into a reconfigurable library of icons
By Jesus Diaz
Ninety-three percent of people with disabilities don’t use a wheelchair, even though the universal symbol that identifies this group is a person in a wheelchair. Liam Riddler, a creative at London’s McCann office, points to his brother, who suffers from Crohn’s disease—a condition that causes inflammation of the digestive tract, potentially causing pain, severe diarrhea, fatigue, weight loss, and malnutrition. It’s an invisible disability: Nobody would know about it by looking at him. Most people don’t understand why he may need to use accessible toilets or take advantage of priority seating.
Public ignorance of these invisible disabilities and the discrimination that results is what prompted Riddler and his colleague—McCann London’s deputy of art Lisa Carrana—to ask an obvious but difficult question: Do we need other symbols for people with invisible disabilities?
Riddler doesn’t claim to have an answer, but he and Carrana want to spur discussion around the issue with a project they have titled Visability93. Half provocation and half an effort to distill the graphical essence of these disabilities, the project is a…
