Brilio.net/en - Seems like some travellers have found innovative ways to deal with many headaches during their journeys. Talking about innovation, this particular invention is beyond unique. It probably will make you free to leave your dictionary at home while leaving your marks around the world.
Dubbed as IconSpeak, its a traveller-dedicated T-shirt with 40 universal icons printed on it. The shirt is intended to help travellers communicate with the locals, in case they forget how to say I think theres a problem with my carburettor in the local tongue.
George Horn and Florian Nast were on the road somewhere in Vietnam, and there was little signage they could use to indicate what they needed. After the unforgettable adventure and over some drinks, partnered with Stefan Streit, they created IconSpeak and started selling the shirts online.
Image via boredpanda
Many times we were confronted with a language barrier that was only to be overcome by drawing signs, symbols or icons on a piece of paper, map, or into the dirt, said Horn. We thought it would be great to have an essential set of icons with you, permanently, so that you could just point to whatever you need and people would understand.
In only a year this ingenious shirt has become a hit, with variations of long short and sleeveless tanks being sold to fans around the world. One of them wrote on Boredpanda, said he wished he has the shirt when he spent two weeks in Afghanistan. For the whole week, he had nothing but cold rations to fill his belly and had a hard time to communicate with a local Afghan National Army soldier that he and his companions wanted real food.
Okay, the idea of this shirt is great, but is it going to work? Will the locals get the meaning of those icons?
"I have used it in Norway," Horn said. "It works beautifully the people you ask are surprisingly quick in getting what you want and mean since they are anyway thinking in a certain context (depends on who they are or where they are). (If) you point to the bus and the clock on the shirt and you do this at a bus stop anybody will know that you want to know when the next bus leaves."
Image via boredpanda
Image via boredpanda
So, the territory is limited. Actually it does make sense, but youll never know unless you try. You probably will speak a whole new language.
Image via boredpanda
Image via boredpanda
Image via boredpanda
Image via boredpanda
(brl/red)
