Parking signs made simple: new design cuts through the confusion

Have you ever been baffled by a parking sign? Or maybe you've been slapped with a fine for misinterpreting the restrictions?

One New York resident was fed up answering "yes" to both these questions and started a unique project to redesign the humble parking sign.

Nikki Sylianteng's inspiration was to replace the text based signs, which cause confusion for residents let alone foreign visitors, with something more visual.

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Nikki's design features a series of calendar-style bars representing a block of days - for example Monday to Friday or Sundays. Each block is divided up into times with parking restrictions marked in red. When you're allowed to park there it's green. The idea being that your eyes naturally draw to the day and time that you want to park rather than having to decipher the instructions.

Nikki said: "I’ve got one-too-many parking tickets because I’ve misinterpreted street parking signs. The current design also poses a driving hazard as it requires drivers to slow down while trying to follow the logic of what the sign is really saying. It shouldn’t have to be this complicated."

Nikki has also considered colour blind drivers and has come up with a subtle hatching to make them distinguishable. Since Feburary, Nikki has been printing off her signs, laminating them and sticking them up under the official parking signs. She's also attached a pen and a feedback box for users to comment in.

Nikki's progress can be tracked on her To Park or Not to Park site and she's even asking people to nominate parking signs in their area by taking a photo and e-mailing it in. Nikki then creates her visual version, prints it out and sends it back for it to be pinned up on site to cut down on frustrating parking tickets.

What do you think of Nikki's parking sign design? Could it transfer to the UK and replace our own brand of baffling parking signage? Let us know on on Twitter, on Facebook or in the comments section below...