Chicago Transit Authority Tunes In to the Community

Exciting news coming from our home city of Chicago–after years of renovations, four CTA Red line stations have reopened with a fresh new look. And we got to play an exciting role in the renovations!

Challenge:

Chicago Transit Authority had an ambitious goal: involve the community in designing the station identifiers for the Argyle, Berwyn, Bryn Mawr, and Lawrence stations. CTA wanted each station’s new artwork to authentically reflect the neighborhoods they serve.

As Chicagoans, community matters. CTA’s bus and L rail systems don’t just move people–they connect neighborhoods, allowing residents to travel easily from one community to another. CTA recognizes that each neighborhood has its own character and charm, and that the residents hold deep pride for where they live.

What better way to do this than to hold community listening sessions to let the voices of each neighborhood be heard?

And who better to listen and visualize than Ink Factory?

Solution:

Our remote visual note-taking combined with our illustration service provided the perfect way to co-create public art.

CTA hosted public listening sessions and invited community members to answer a series of questions about their community. Ink Factory joined remotely and we visualized the answers in real-time.

From there, we collaborated with the CTA team to identify the top themes that emerged and developed unique visuals for each station. These community-inspired visuals were then vectorized and transformed into the striking backlit metal signs that now welcome thousands of daily commuters.

The Result:

Today, those community conversations are permanently etched into Chicago’s transit landscape. Every time someone enters these stations, they’re seeing their neighbors’ voices translated into art.