AIGA published this great little article recounting the tale of how the NYC Subway system went from a labyrinth filled with mosaic and hand-made signs in a variety of colors, sizes, styles, and more–to a highly organized signage system. They made it look so easy!

We’ve all been witness to the efficiency of this system so we don’t even think about it anymore. They made it look so easy! This is on of those articles that you want to print and read offline on a Saturday afternoon. And that’s just one of the design wonders that the 20th century brought into existence.

NYC Subway signs - before

Mosaic subways signs (from the top): 1 train, Rector Street (1918); 1 train, South Ferry (1904); N/R/W, Prince Street (1917); “To 19th,” 1 train, 18th Street (1918); L, Morgan Avenue (1928); “Down town,” 4/5/6, 86th Street (1917); “Up town,” R/W, Whitehall Street (1918); E/F/G/R/V, Grand Avenue, Newtown (1936); M/R, F connection to 9th Street (1915) and BMT, Fourth Avenue (1933). Caption courtesy of AIGA.

NYC Subway signs - after

(top and bottom rows): From the 1970 NYCTA Graphic Standards Manual, Unimark Design Consultants, a page indicating directional information, the cover and and typeface instruction using Standard, not Helvetica; (middle) “Donna” illustration of platform signage by Bob Noorda (c.1966, colorized in 2008). Caption courtesy of AIGA.

People's Progression Toward Equality

And now for something different. Urban Murals are a force of positive change in Philly. I just heard this story on NPR and I had to write a bit about it because I liked it so much.

Jane Golden and the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program have helped convert more than 3,000 walls into murals that, among many things, have replaced empty trashed lots with parks, attracted developers to renovated areas, resisted defacing (for the most part), provided a city-wide art tour (with audio guides), and headed some of the city’s neglected areas.

Technically this is more art than design, but this project serves the function that a good city PR firm dreams of. Looking forward to seeing some of these in person.

Star Wars travel poster

Artist Justin van Genderen makes traveling to planets in the Star Wars universe look so retro hip that you would probably have to knock and have a codeword ready to enter places like Cloud City or Tatooine. View the rest with Justin van Genderen’s Flickr stream which popped up on illustration and cartoon art blog Drawn! In one of the comments of the original io9 post,  a reader wrote that these posters reminded them of Simon Page’s  International Year of Astronomy 2009 posters that I wrote about here. I completely agree—manly because I clicked on the post to read it because I thought the posters were by Simon page. Small world, no?

Via io9.