We always thought that the design of the traffic light was just about perfect. But then, we also thought that the boring old keyboard had reached the zenith of its existence until Art Lebedev came along and glued on a bunch of expensive OLEDs, giving the world the Optimus Maximus.
Above you see the Luxofor Traffic Light, a rather smart update to the traditional traffic signal. Lebedev moves away from the circular lamp, which was designed for illumination by light bulbs, and places the LEDs found in most new lamps onto a square panel. And that's it. Lebedev says you get more space for the signals, and that they are easier to see.
The Luxofor page helpfully has mockups of designs tailored to different cities around the world: New York gets yellow cases, and Tokyo gets a couple of speakers on stalks to, presumably, shout instructions at the crowds of milling pedestrians.
Britain, the home of the traffic light, is curiously excluded. We assume that it would come weighed down with extras -- speed detectors, security cameras and child-scaring noise emitters.
Lebedev also left out Naples, Italy, presumably because traffic lights there are universally ignored. In fact, their only purpose seems to be to lure unsuspecting tourists into the path of speeding scooters where they will be crushed in a hideous scene simultaneously reminiscent of both Ben Hur and Mad Max. How do I know this? I was there this weekend, and narrowly escaped with my life.
Luxofor traffic lights design concept [Art Lebedev via Design Launches]
