A stylised white figure in a wheelchair on a blue square background, indicating accessible facilities.
Also known as: Wheelchair symbol, Handicap symbol, Accessibility symbol, Accessible symbol
Designed in 1968 by Danish design student Susanne Koefoed for a Rehabilitation International design competition, the International Symbol of Access indicates facilities, parking, entrances or services that are accessible to wheelchair users, and by extension often to disabled people more broadly.
Indicates a facility, parking space, entrance or service that is accessible to wheelchair users.
Contexts: Public information
Designed by Danish design student Susanne Koefoed in 1968 for a Rehabilitation International competition; the original design lacked a head on the seated figure, which was added shortly after to 'humanise' it before formal adoption in 1969.
1968–1969
Related forms that are not treated as separate canonical symbols — see our variant rules.
Dynamic/active accessibility symbol
An unofficial, widely adopted redesign showing the figure leaning forward as if propelling the wheelchair, used by some cities and organisations alongside or instead of the original static design.
A simplified white silhouette of a person seated in a wheelchair, shown on a blue square background.
In 2014, New York became the first US state to require newly installed or replaced accessibility signage to use the 'Accessible Icon' — a redesigned, forward-leaning wheelchair figure distinct from the original International Symbol of Access — and to prohibit the word 'handicapped' on such signage. The redesign grew out of a grassroots street-art initiative, the Accessible Icon Project.