🚹
| Text style | Emoji style | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 🚹︎ | 🚹️ | |||||||
| Text style is forced with ⟨︎⟩ and emoji style with ⟨️⟩. | ||||||||
| ||||||||
Translingual
Symbol origin
The male restroom pictogram, alongside the female (🚺) and unisex (🚻) equivalents, were each created in circa 1965 by British Rail for their train stations.[1][2] The symbol became standardised in the United States in 1974 when the Department of Transportation collaborated with the American Institute of Graphic Arts et al. on iconography for the public called the DOT pictograms, which included several versions of the symbol.[3] The depictions were based on the Isotype picture language developed in Austria between 1925 and 1934.[4][5]
Description
A silhouette of man standing straight.
Symbol
🚹
Usage notes
- Depictions of the symbol vary,[6] but it is generally shown to be a generic stick figure, sometimes wearing long pants.[7] At restaurants and other businesses, it is common to see novelty and jocular variations of the icon, especially in regards to 🚺︎ (see the usage notes of 🚻︎).[8]
- As an emoji, almost all operating systems display this symbol as a blue box with a stick figure. iOS, Facebook and WhatsApp for Android and desktop, Telegram—which uses animated versions of Apple's emoji—and the erstwhile LG emoji set among others use a stylised depiction of the man with a single leg. The Unicode character itself was released in Unicode 6.0 in October 2010.[9]
- This symbol (designated PF 004) is part of the ISO 7001 set of pictograms and symbols for public information by the International Organization for Standardization.
Gallery
- Depictions
-
ISO 7001
-
DOT pictogram
-
Example of a humorous design in Hawaii
See also
References
- ^ Association of Public Lighting Engineers (1965) The Illuminating Engineer[1], volume 58, Illuminating Engineering Publishing Company, page 347: “A total lighting load of 20 kw for a toilet may sound excessive but the new luxury toilets recently opened at Victoria Station by British Rail are an exception. […] Large illuminated signs over the entrances incorporate easily recognised continental style pictograms.”
- ^ Jonathan Glancey (11 September 2014) “The genius behind stick figure toilet signs”, in BBC Future[2], BBC News
- ^ American Institute of Graphic Arts (November 1974) Symbol Signs: The Development of Passenger/Pedestrian Oriented Symbols for Use in Transportation-Related Facilities[3], United States Department of Transportation, pages 28–32
- ^ Steven Heller (24 April 2014) “The Utopian Origins of Restroom Symbols”, in The Atlantic[4]
- ^ Margaret Rhodes (22 May 2015) “Redesigned ladies restroom icon cleverly skirts skirt”, in Wired[5]
- ^ Rudolf Modley, William R. Myers (1976) Handbook of Pictorial Symbols: 3,250 examples from international sources (in English), Dover Publications, →ISBN, pages 59–60
- ^ Søren Kjørup (2004) “Pictograms”, in Klaus Robering, Roland Posner, Thomas Albert Sebeok, editor, Semiotik / Semiotics (Handbooks of Linguistics and Communication Science), volume 4, De Gruyter, →ISBN, page 3505: “Read as a picture, it typically shows, in a more or less detailed way, a person dressed in long pants, as opposed to the "picture" on the door to the ladies' room which shows a person wearing a skirt.”
- ^ Melanie Gervasoni (10 September 2023) “50 Funny Bathroom Signs People Found Around The World”, in Bored Panda[6]
- ^ “Version 6.0.0”, in The Unicode Standard[7], Unicode Consortium, 11 October 2010, retrieved 5 October 2023
Further reading
- Gender symbol on Wikipedia.Wikipedia
- “🚹 Men's Room”, in Emojipedia, 2013–present.
- American Institute of Graphic Arts (November 1974) Symbol Signs: The Development of Passenger/Pedestrian Oriented Symbols for Use in Transportation-Related Facilities[8], United States Department of Transportation, pages 66–67, 110
- International Organization for Standardization (February 2023) “Public information symbols”, in ISO 7001:2023: Graphical symbols — Registered public information symbols, 4 edition