In addition to designing the artistic motifs, Heins and LaFarge also did much of the architectural work that determined the overall appearance of entire subway stations.

[3] Heins and LaFarge knew what materials would stand up well to heavy-duty cleaning and scrubbing; they worked with the ceramic-producing firms Grueby Faience Company of Boston and Rookwood Pottery of Cincinnati.

Their ceramic artwork includes colorful pictorial motifs relevant to a station's location, for example: Their bas-reliefs in the subway have been likened to the work of the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea Della Robbia.

Besides serving an aesthetic function, the images are helpful to New York City's large population of non-English speakers and those who can't read.

As well as pictorial plaques and ceramic signs, Heins and LaFarge designed the running decorative motifs, such as egg-and-dart patterns, along station ceilings.

[3] In addition to their wall-side tilework, Heins and LaFarge “hung large, illuminated porcelain-enamel signs over the express platforms, using black type [actually hand-lettering] on a white background and painted station names on the round cast-iron columns.”[3] In 1906, Squire J. Vickers, then a young architect, was hired.

[3] In his pictorial work, Vickers emphasizes actual buildings as landmarks, such as his colorful depiction of Brooklyn Borough Hall (1919) at the station of that name, rather than Heins and LaFarge's beavers and sailing ships.

He describes his technique: "...the mosaic was of the cut variety, that is, the body is burned in strips, glazed, and then broken into irregular shapes.

Two exhibitions, one celebrating the work of Heins & LaFarge and one for Vickers, were mounted at the New York Transit Museum's Gallery Annex[4] at Grand Central Terminal during 2007.

The Art Deco-influenced form of the IND's tiles was designed in part by Vickers, who integrated directional signs mainly into the walls themselves.

[3] The station-specific tiles used in the IND's stations are all color-coded in a specific five-color pattern, as they had originally been designed to facilitate navigation for travelers going away from Manhattan.

Tablets are simple, with a common design, and black tile with white letters spell out the station name on the wall.