Walking man as advertising star

Between 2000 and 2004, New York City, at a cost of $28 million, replaced all 85,000 street signs that read, “WALK/DON’T WALK,” with ones that use the international symbols for those commands—the white walking man and the imposing red hand. For some, the change was a bit jarring. (“They’re really bright. They hurt my eyes,” one youngster told The New Yorker. Plus, he added, “the old one is just more original.”) But it did give New York creatives a new character to work with—and indeed, the stick-figure everyman seems to appear in more