For the past year or so, these freestanding signs showcasing maps and local information have been appearing throughout New York City. They were designed by Michael Bierut’s team at Pentagram, working with City ID, Billings Jackson Design, RBA Group, and T-Kartor—all for the city’s Department of Transportation. They signs are primarily geared towards visitors, so being a New Yorker myself, it’s hard to evaluate their effectiveness. But they’re beautiful works of municipal graphic design, and demonstrate a rigorous attention to detail that’s sadly too rare in public design efforts.
The signs come in a range of sizes to match their environments. Many of them are installed as part of New York’s Citibike docks, though those aren’t as impressive as the obelisk-like form of the freestanding signs.
My favorite detail is probably the system of intricate icons of architectural landmarks developed for the signs’ graphic language—sixty-four were commissioned for this first phase of the project, with more to come.
Pentagram has more in this blog post, and Pentagram designer Hamish Smyth also has comments on his blog.
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