And now for another “man about town” as I showed yesterday. This popular image you will find at nearly all U-bahn stations and underpasses around town. I took the photo because I was sure there was a good story behind this retro-looking symbol – complete with the hat, suit and complimentary swagger. Yet I’ve looked and looked and can’t find any details about who designed it, how it was adopted as standard signage, what timeframe it’s from (my bet would be 40s to 50s, but that’s based upon an American’s perspective, not German), and possibly most important of all – does he have a great German name. If you know of any details, please fill me in.
1 comment:
I'll try to enlighten you a little bit about the guy with the hat ;-)
German traffic signs, as we see them today, were first designed and regulated in 1934. The original design was later modified/modernized, first only slightly, in 1970 and then again, fairly drastically, in 1992.
The little guy your picture shows is a 1970 design version of VZ 355. He became invalid on September 1st, 2009, and should be replaced immediately with the 1992 version of sign VZ 355-10.
I don't know his name, but I would call him *Herbert Unterführinger*
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