Since my health club closed, I’ve been climbing stairs for exercise. I mention this only to explain that I spend a lot of time in various stairwells, one of which belongs to a hospital. There’s not a lot to look at or think about while climbing an interior fire escape, but at the hospital I think about signage. Like many hospitals, the one I use is not a building but a sprawling complex which has grown over the years into an awkward labyrinth connected by skywalks, tunnels, and twisting hallways. The disorderly floor plan can be surmised from a single sign in the stairwell, which note that there are eight floors, but 15 levels (although neither numbering system includes the hospital’s 16th level or “penthouse”—we can all guess what goes on up there). The stairs open onto both a first floor (which allows access to the neighboring building) and a ground floor, and various cryptic explanations meant to solve the problem that the whimsical numbering system creates.

Nearly all hospitals are as byzantine as this one—hapless patients and visitors, many under stress, are forced to following colored dots or stripes or Latinate signage down miles of twisting corridor, all for the privilege of giving a urine sample. Why? One is forced to conclude that doctors, unlike mere people, find this all intuitive—perhaps even comforting and nurturing. Perhaps it seems simple, as compared to the majesty that is the circulatory system.

So, given this, how would you organize a theoretical magazine for hospital administrators?—they are probably baffled by the Dick and Jane simplicity of ordinary magazine and newspaper structure. I’m thinking there would need to be a separate numbering system for the tops and bottoms of pages; a supplement that could only be accessed when the main book is turned to page 43; and probably interwoven articles that one could read by following a color-coded text. But what mere designer has a mind, um, “scientific” enough to design it? The only option might be to hire an MD to DD.

Airport signage, on the other hand, seems to translate quite well to the editorial environment, as New York demonstrated the other week. I haven’t flown in or out of NY in years, but New York turns what is essentially a service journalism piece into an engaging and entertaining package with captivating information graphics, tables and fascinating but trivial factoids. The photography is nothing special, but it still seems vibrant because of context. This works particularly well on the opening spread where the lead art serves as both illustration and infographic—backed-up planes are listed by how late they were to their destinations the day the photo was taken.

The translation of airport signage to page architecture is an obvious move, but New York handles it with enough aplumb that the conceit does not become boring or repetitive—even through dubious sidebars about decent airport meals.