Beyond the Bathroom Binary

Huffington Post Test Kitchen

As a subset of the Huffington Post, the Huffington Post Test Kitchen combines visual art with the written word. Graphic design, video, painting, and other forms of creative media are paired with written articles. 'Beyond the Bathroom Binary', written by Carina Kolodny, questions the use of a stereotypical 'woman' or 'man' to represent a restroom. Designers created their own interpretations of the bathroom icon to accompany the article.

I submitted four different icons: two toilets, and two sinks. A toilet was my first thought for this prompt, but I continued to develop a few more icons to see where I could push the concept. A sink made sense to me as well because it, along with the toilet, is almost always found in a restroom. Thinking about it further, human icons don't make much sense as indicators of bathrooms; a person who had never seen that kind of signage before would likely be very confused about what it meant!

Carina Kolodny's article can be read here, and the entire gallery can be viewed here!

Project Details

Huffington Post Test Kitchen Team:

Creative Direction: Carina Kolodny & Marc Janks
Art Direction: Adam Glucksman
Web Design: Jonathan Shin
Editors: Alexander Eichler, Noah Michelson
Motion Design: Isabella Carapella
Multimedia Producer: Savannah O'Leary