T-shirt with universal appeal

Papua New Guinea is a country of more than 800 languages, so if you get stuck communicating, what better way to get your message across than with this clever T-shirt with 39 universal icons printed on it?

The symbols represent things such as food, hotels, hospitals, telephones, first aid and where to get a drink of water.

Just point to the symbol to get your message across.

The T-shirt is the invention of Swiss mates who were riding motorbikes through Vietnam in 2013 when one broke down. They needed help to get the bike fixed, but no one in the village could understand their English or French, so they ended up drawing icons on pieces of paper to be understood. The icons worked and they continued to communicate this way for the remainder of their Vietnam trip, before returning home and transferring the nifty idea on to T-shirts and turning it into a business venture. See iconspeak.world. ■