Ritik Shah: The Indian metro systems as a form of civic communication

Ritik Shah examines wayfinding across nine Indian metro systems — including Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Kolkata — as a form of civic communication shaped by India's multilingual landscape. With no standardised guidelines, each network has developed its own approach to displaying English, Hindi, and regional languages across multiple scripts, leading to varying levels of clarity and consistency. The talk shows how typographic and hierarchy choices can privilege some language communities while obscuring information for others, offering designers practical tools for analysing multiscript transport signage beyond surface aesthetics. This talk is a part of IIID VisionPlus 2026 conference "Information design and civic administration: trust, tradition and toxicity".