Shan X. Liao builds visual systems, documents cultural residue, and writes at the edge of memory and design. Brooklyn, for now.

廖玄林，位于纽约布鲁克林区，是一名高级平面设计师、制作总监。

PROJECTS & WORK
HomeMapping
Commercial
Analog imaging
Substack
Poetry
Poster journal

Expansion of the New York City Subway, historical

June 2024

This system map of the New York City Subway, while based on the official MTA Weekday Daytime map, does not seek to serve as a wayfinding tool, but instead to provide the reader with a visual history of how today’s system was stitched together from a patchwork of progenitor systems that predate the present-day MTA by many generations of New Yorkers.

In this design, the map seeks to detangle the subway for its reader with hopes to appreciate the system’s complexity, understand its limitations, and raise questions for its future.

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