The Washington Metro Transit Authority has quietly rolled out a simple but ingenious wayfinding solution: colored escalator railings to guide passengers to their trains. Graphic designer Jen Scharl spotted the new colored rails Fort Totten. There’s no word yet on other stations — for now this is a test, but it is relatively cost-neutral so it might also be ohe beginning of a new WMATA design strategy. The ones so far deployed appear robust — the colors are embedded, not just painted on.

Of course, using colors, symbols and numbers to guide people through stations is nothing new, but anyone who has rushed between levels to transfer trains knows that these aren’t always easy to spot. Plus, color systems are helpful to people who can’t read the text signage for whateve reasons.

Sometimes, finding a sign takes a few seconds, leaving one looking around at the top (or bottom) of an escalator — now, transit users can simply follow the colors. Colorblind passengers will, of course, still have to rely on conventional signage, but perhaps there is a future iteration of this strategy (yet to be designed or deployed) involving symbols as well as colors.

Systems that have been in place for a long time often get overlooked when it comes to wayfinding innovations — aside from periodic guerrilla interventions, locals know what to do and expect others to figure it out on the fly, so it’s nice to see a proactive new solution playing out in an old context.

Inspired by detailed three-dimensional maps of Hong Kong subway stations, a New York artist has painstakingly documented and rendered a gorgeous series of helpful underground diagrams.

Exiting a subway network can be a disorienting experience. While stair signage and sidewalk compasses can help, anyone navigating based on landmarks or other surface features is lost. Project Subway NYC by Candy Chan is a step in the right direction. Using pen, paper and a camera, she meticulously recorded directions and relative positions of tracks and lines, referring to Google and MTA resources as a baseline.

She then took the results into AutoCAD, verified those drawings in person, and proceeded to model and render the results using Rhino, Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop to produce 3D maps. Her explorations have helped her identify pain points for navigating these multilevel stations.

From CityLab: “The first batch includes five stops along Broadway: Columbus Circle, Times Square, Herald Square, Madison Square, and Union Square. But Chan hopes to do more, in Manhattan as well as in the outer boroughs. Since the project just launched two weeks ago, she’s gauging people’s reactions to decide which stations to explore next.”

Still, 3D maps may not in themselves be a solution – murals, screens, signage or other indicators tied to visual landmarks from the world above would be a welcome addition for those who cannot read English or simply navigate using different means and methods.

Using augmented reality highlights, hints and cues to guide bikers through complex city paths and streets, this conceptual system addresses issues of wayfinding and safety, speculatively asking: “Could a cycle path be created, or at least augmented, using connected technologies?”

Five initial functions are proposed by the Connected Cyclists project for this wearable prototype, all around themes of navigation in London, a place notorious for the variety of its path types and unexpected route shifts. With so many transitions between street paths, parks and alleyways, it can be hard for bikers new to the city to know where to go – subtle highlights of next steps could solve that problem.

“We see that cyclists often take bearings when paused at traffic lights—this interface could essentially simply provide the next direction, reinforcing the journey. We also feel that the visual nudge implied here, using the fabric of the city itself, is more akin to how cyclists move and navigate—a more fluid movement through and sometimes across the streetscape, as opposed to the very directed navigation delivered for drivers.”

Blind spot visualization assists travelers as they pass in the shadows of cars, buses and trucks, while an overall approach promoting backstreet network paths helps avoid traffic and poor air quality in the first place. Monuments, icons and landmarks displayed subtly in the background can also give clues to riders about where they are in the city.

Already there are many programs like CityMapper built on OpenStreetMaps that contain the necessary information about routes and paths but using those on the go via a typical mobile device means either unsafe cycling practices or frequent stops, hence the augmented heads-up display. “If these displays talked to the city around them—if they knew where the cyclist was and what they were looking at—they could give much more subtle spatial and contextual information that builds on the surroundings of the cyclist.”

The key is making such technology accessible and seamless, a distraction-free overlay to other visual information being taken in by those on bikes moving through the urban environment.

“Many cities are spending serious money, time and attention on improving the ‘hard infrastructure’ of cities to make cycling safer, more convenient, more attractive,” but “there is potential of a ‘soft infrastructure’ which can be overlaid on existing urban fabric to further support cycling, which takes advantage of contemporary technologies such as wearables, the internet of things, real-time sensor data, and so on.”

While none of this is a reality quite yet, “‘Design stories’ allow you to try on a future for size, and to imagine how a prototype might fit into its urban context. With prototypes to point at, critique and discuss we can begin to imagine other externalities or knock-on effects and build up both understanding and language to discuss what can otherwise be fairly abstract and technical ideas.”

Combining a novel form of wayfinding with a nod to the upcoming 2020 Olympic Games in Tokyo, this new airport terminal trades moving walkways for a color-coded circuit of racetrack paths (or runways, if you will).

The airport extension to Narita International anticipates the additional capacity needed in a few years for the upcoming event but also reflects a limited budget for expansion, together driving a design that needs no illuminated signs and skips people-moving devices.

Blue leads to departures and red takes people to arrivals – a simple scheme but easily visible when set against the more monotone surrounding interiors. The collaborative project featured contributions by PARTY with consultants from Nikken (photography by Kenta Hasegawa).

Of course, we all know the experience of being late for takeoff – beyond its aesthetics, it could indeed prove quite useful to have fast and slow lanes during busy times and for those whose commutes demand they make their plane in time.

Putting loose ends to good use, this clever piece of street-smart apparel takes advantage of the usually-hidden flip side of your standard-shaped men’s tie.

Savvy travelers know that there is no better way to look like a tourist than to pull out a map from your pocket or stare too long into your smartphone, hence this subtle and neutrally stylish alternative.

Designed and sold by Rakuten in Japan, current available cities include Tokyo, Osaka and Kyoto. The dotted and striped, variously-colored ties cost 6,000 yen (around $70 USD) – not bad for a 100% silk map that doubles as business attire.