WINNER
MTA Digital Subway Map
by Work & Co, for Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA)
New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) collaborated with Work & Co on a new digital subway map to help riders on their journeys, the first major redesign for the network in four decades. The MRA Live Subway Map is a web-based platform which evokes the city’s subway maps – designed by Unimark International and Michael Hertz Associations – but adds current-day technology. This includes automatically updating train times, moving train icons and zoom-in features.
The updates work alongside the classic geometric look of the original map designs – train lines redraw themselves according to real-time data to illustrate service statuses more accurately. Sections of train lines fade out when a train is not running or are denoted with dashes if they’re going in one direction. The service also provides emergency updates (using the MTA’s data feed) and highlights accessibility features such as lifts and escalators. The platform is constantly evolving, according to Work & Co. Most recently, a feature was added to help users find Covid-19 vaccination sites across the city.
The judges said: “Beautifully digital solution to the Massimo vs Herz debate. Solves the problems of mapping Massimo’s original graphic design masterpiece accurately for neighbourhoods. Live moving trains create an active map experience with real-time status, which is really useful.”
Giki Zero
by Design Bridge, for Giki
Get Informed Know Your Impact (GIKI) was prompted by research that two thirds of people would find it easier to take small steps to reduce their environmental impact, rather than take big changes. Design Bridge worked with the organisation to create a gamified online tool that would help people achieve these goals. Giki Zero tracks and offers engaging ways for people to reduce carbon, water and land-use footprints – by looking at behaviours around travel and food purchases, for example. The design team used a bold colour palette, badges and bespoke data visualisations in an attempt to make the online tool as user-friendly as possible.
Robinhood Product Design
by Collins & Robinhood in-house team, for Robinhood
Robinhood aims to make investing more accessible for those who lack the privilege of generational wealth, or find the financial world unappealing, through commission-free trading. Design studio Collins was brought into overhaul the app’s offering as it expands its focus, working not only to make finance less difficult, but “more engaging and understandable”. The new strategy seeks to encourage users to “imagine better futures”, the studio says, with imaginative illustrations and information graphics. Visual metaphors also aim to explain concepts such as fractional shares and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). Working with Robinhood’s in-house design team, Collins also built educational resources and a podcast entitled Snacks. “We hope this will enable a virtuous cycle and catalyse change in people’s lives and relationship to money,” Collins adds.
Symphosizer for San Francisco Symphony
by Collins, for San Francisco Symphony
Collins created a ‘symphosizer’ – a sound-activated typographic instrument – as part of the new identity for the San Francisco Symphony, partly inspired by the symphony’s work experimenting with emerging technologies. The online tool uses the custom-variable typeface the studio created for the symphony’s brand identity and adapts it according to sound input using reactive font technology. People can write out text on the platform and then make as much noise as they want. Using a product’s microphone, the symphosizer reacts to the noise and morphs the typeface into different shapes. By presenting a responsive and evolving visual system, the platform hopes to engage with the symphony’s fans, old and new.
Interaction Design
shortlisted
Interaction Design