International Icon for Wireless Internet Access

A couple of months ago I was asked by WIRED magazine to judge a contest as part of NextFest they were holding to create a Universal Wi-Fi Icon. In speaking with them about why they were holding the contest, the Drew Schutte, WIRED’s publisher, told me that he and his staff saw how Wi-Fi networks, especially free, community-based ones like NYCwireless were using their prevalence and success to cause social change. He said he believed that through Community Wireless Networks and Municipal Networks, the dream of universal, affordable internet access was finally making progress. Drew thought that with all of their organizational vision, the one thing that lots of these networks lacked was visibility. And what better way to bring some visibility to their work but to create an an icon that can be used by all of those communities to indicate the availability of free Wi-Fi.

Barbara Bloemink, Curatorial Director, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and Colleen Macklin, Design Department Chair, Parsons The New School for Design, the other judges for the icon contest, sat and discussed the many creative submissions for hours on end. The choice was difficult. We thought about lots of different directions, from showcasing the “free” part to of community wireless networks, to the internet connectivity that such networks usually provide, to the community engagement and development that generally lives at the core of such groups, to the ubiquitous nature of most municipal wireless efforts. We even had discussions about the nature of the design language that we wanted to promote with the icon choice so that when given to the community, the icon can be developed and take on a number of descriptive roles.

In the end, because of how such community and municipal networks are expanding across the world, especially in developing countries, and because we didn’t want to constrain the iconography to a single language (English), we chose a simple globe with the ubiquitous radiating signal lines. The design is both easy to understand (these networks connect us to each other throughout the world) and universal (at least, we believe that a “globe” is mostly understood as representing the Earth), and should be able to be used across the myriad community and municipal networks around the world.

The winning design was submitted by Val Frixione from Los Angeles, CA:

Val says, “A wireless hot spot is like a digital oasis that enables us to connect to the world. This is the main concept behind the proposed design: the depiction of planet earth offering a wireless connection to those who need one.”

One of the interesting extensions that we finished our day discussing was the concept of locality that is a basis of most community networks. Though people understand that the internet a universal and world-wide tool, community networks are local creations, reflecting the needs and structures of local communities. For example, in New York City, our community wireless networks are based in parks and public spaces, since that’s where so many residents and visitors spend their time. Compare that to Montreal (home of Ile Sans Fil), where the culture (and weather in the winter) drive many indoors to cafes, or to Champaign-Urbana (home of CUWiN), where lack of choice and affordability of internet access has driven a suburban and rural community to develop a mesh network that grows from house to house.

In order to reflect the different types of local structures and venues, one of the first iconographic extensions I’d like to see is the creation of supplemental icons, like coffee cups, buildings, trees, houses, and so on that can be used to indicate the type of nodes that are available on the network. Such icons can appear on the node profiles and maps.

Continuing in this local context, additional icons that reflect the capabilities and content of each local node should also be developed. For example, for the urban style hotspots in New York, Montreal, and many other cities, we can have supplemental icons that indicate there’s local content, music, art, and commerce that is available at that location through the hotspot.

There are lots of other ideas that are possible. We’ll be starting to develop some of them, and others should make use of the icons and come up with other ideas as well.

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