Shan X. Liao is a visual designer, agency veteran, image maker, and poet. She is based in Brooklyn, New York.
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。
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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。
CATALOGUE
HomeAbout
Visual design
Commercial
Analog imaging
Writing
Mapping
GenAI
Mapping
The 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.
San Francisco Municipal Railway, 2022
November 2022
San Francisco Municipal Railway began services in 1912 and currently operates seven light rail lines, 54 bus lines, and 17 trolleybus lines. This diagram depicts MUNI’s key routes as well as the Central Subway extension through SoMA and Chinatown, which opened in November 2022.
Southern California intercity rail map, 2025
October 2022, updated January 2025
This map depicts the rail system of the greater Los Angeles area, however it tackles an institutional issue that affects American transit. Large metropolitan regions like Los Angeles tend to have dozens of transit agencies, such as LA Metro, Metrolink, Amtrak, and others covering its population.
By emphasizing the long distance connections made by Metrolink on this map, we are able to see the actual extent of transit connections in Southern California’s emerging megalopolis.
This map hopes to be a motivator for these agencies to work together and make transit usable for all people, regardless of where they choose to call home.
Beijing Tram, 1958, historical
October 2022
The ancient capital of Beijing opened its first electric tramway in June 1921. In five years it would expand to five lines, and it survived the Chinese Civil War to reach a peak in 1957. However, laying new tram track proved difficult for the rapidly growing city, and planners opted for trolleybuses instead as a solution. By 1966, the last tram line between Yongdingmen and Beijing Gymnasium ceased operation.
Today home to nearly twenty-five million people, Beijing has experienced a revolutionary renewal into a global city in the last three decades. Along with that growth, its sprawling metro system has grown to rank first in the world by daily passenger volume, serving an average of ten million trips per day.
Tahoe–Truckee Area Transit, fantasy
October 2022
Tahoe–Truckee is a resort community that sits along the California and Nevada border centered around the ancient Lake Tahoe. It is home to an interstate transit agency that offers free service all day between its various communities, town centers, and ski resorts. Tahoe–Truckee Area Regional Transit (TART) offers 24/7 bus service within three mainline routes, three local routes, and three weekend ski shuttles.
As a rural community that is visited heavily by tourists, service can be infrequent. This map attempts to solve the problem of illustrating the system without a timetable by utilizing line thickness as an indicator of service frequency.
In this fantasy depiction of the Tahoe–Truckee area, the map diverges from reality at its route numbering system. The current numbering scheme is arbitrary and doesn’t say a whole lot without also listing the names of the termini. By adopting the state route number on which mainline routes cover, a routes service area is a little more clear to the rider by simply looking at the rollsign.
Northern California intercity rail map, 2022
October 2022
This map depicts the rail system of the greater San Francisco–Sacramento metropolitan area, however it tackles an institutional issue that affects American transit. Large metropolitan regions like the Bay Area tend to have dozens of transit agencies, such as SFMUNI, AC Transit, BART, Caltrain, VTA, and others covering its population.
By emphasizing the long distance connections made by regional rail, such as Amtrak, ACE, Caltrain, and Capitol Corridor, over local transit on this map, we are able to see the actual extent of transit connections in Northern California’s emerging megalopolis.
This map hopes to be a motivator for these agencies to work together and make transit usable for all people, regardless of where they choose to call home.