Forum: Make it easier to find a toilet
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Why am I seeing more and more toilet signs that are inconspicuously displayed, artistically cryptic and dimly lit?
To add to the adventure, the toilets themselves are often cloaked in dark walls and wall-to-wall mirrors. Curiously, the classier the building, the more extreme the design choices seem to be.
Perhaps designers can help shed some light here – literally – or perhaps it’s just me. I do, after all, belong to the rapidly growing demographic known as “the elderly”: a group that, I must confess, visits the toilet more frequently and does so with eyesight that is no longer on speaking terms with subtle signage.
Isn’t it reasonable that someone in urgent need of relief would like to locate the toilet as soon as possible?
A quick refresh break, especially when in company, is more socially acceptable than absence due to time spent wandering the corridors squinting at minimalist icons and trying to deduce which door corresponds to one’s gender.
So I ask, half in jest and half in desperation: Am I simply getting old, or has the humble toilet sign become an unnecessary exercise in aesthetic restraint?
Yoon Wai Nam
