Spring Chicken has launched a campaign - "Sign of the Times" - to change the image of ageing. Designers have been invited to originate alternatives to the ‘patronising’ road sign that suggests older people are all infirm and hazards to drivers.
“The signs give the message that old people are frail and disabled – it contributes to the some of the age discrimination that we know exists in society,” said Anna James, founder of Spring Chicken, which specialises in selling gadgets designed to make life easier for older people, is hoping to change that.
The campaign asks designers to reinvent the current “elderly crossing” sign to “do justice to the fantastic creativity, energy, curiousity and sheer vim of the older people that we meet. Today’s older adults don’t think of themselves as old and infirm,” James said. “I think there is a way to represent the need for drivers to slow down without suggesting that life is over for older people. We want to change the image of ageing and bring some wit and humour, and a more accurate reflection of older people, to these signs.
Read the whole story, as written up by the Telegraph here.
See the gallery of entries for the new sign on the Sign of The Times website and have your say.
