Ampelmännchen

The Ampelmänchen will travel the world an join some other traffic lights. Please post a picture of them with other traffic lights.

Ampelmännchen (German: little traffic light man, pl. Ampelmännchen) is the symbolic person shown on traffic lights at pedestrian crossings in the former German Democratic Republic (GDR – East Germany). Prior to the German reunification in 1990, the two German states had different forms for the Ampelmännchen, with a generic human figure in West Germany, and a generally male figure wearing a hat in the east.

The Ampelmännchen is a beloved symbol in Eastern Germany, “enjoy[ing] the privileged status of being one of the few features of communist East Germany to have survived the end of the Iron Curtain with his popularity unscathed.” After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the Ampelmännchen acquired cult status and became a popular souvenir item in the tourism business.


Design and Concept

The first traffic lights at pedestrian crossings were erected in the 1950s, and many countries developed different designs (which were eventually standardised). At that time, traffic lights were the same for cars, bicycles and pedestrians. The East Berlin Ampelmännchen was created in 1961 by traffic psychologist Karl Peglau (1927–2009) as part of a proposal for a new traffic lights layout.

Peglau criticised the fact that the standard colours of the traffic lights (red, yellow, green) did not provide for road users who were unable to differentiate between colours (10 percent of the total population); and that the lights themselves were too small and too weak when competing against luminous advertising and sunlight. Peglau proposed to retain the three colours but to introduce intuitive shapes for each coloured light. This idea received strong support from many sides, but Peglau’s plans were doomed by the high costs involved in replacing existing traffic light infrastructure.

source: wikipedia