OR Design Your Way Out of a Elevator Paper Bag. That’s not as silly as it sounds! This man right here, Gabrizio Gianella, has designed a new couple of icons that will change, ever so slightly, millions of peoples lives. In the elevator. I think you might understand rather quickly. It’s all just a matter of removing some arrows and adding a couple vertical lines.

While the icons on elevator door buttons used now are sort of… understood by doing once or twice, they aren’t as intuitive as they could be. What Gianella aims (aimed?) to do was to turn it from a moment of deciphering to a moment of simple understanding.

All he did was change the elevator door buttons from A to B.

A ) The door icons show the doors in their closed position all the time, the arrows show the direction of the doors, but simplification is just a matter of…

B ) It’s just the doors. Doors apart, doors close together. Simplified!

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies industrial design category.

2 Comments

• Posted by LuisQSM | 02.08.10

  I think the icons with only vertical lines are not so intuitive as the “old” ones..
  Simplification shouldn’t be just a matter of cleaning and eliminating elements, from the icons in this case.
  The use of the arrows implies MOVEMENT, which is the most important factor in the concept of “opening” and “closing”, more than just the position of the door itself.
  The use of the arrows will give the user a better understanding of the action (movement) that will perform by pressing the buttons.

• Posted by Chris Burns | 02.08.10

  all valid points, fer sher

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