Found in the archives!
Unrealized DC Metro map designs. Although Massimo Vignelli, while at Unimark International, designed the signage for the Washington DC Metro subway in 1968, he didn’t design the map (which was designed by Lance Wyman).
But we recently uncovered a variety of ideas mocked up on these presentation boards. We also found some original sketches for the signage! Stay tuned!
It’s well known that the signage and wayfinding system for the DC Metro was designed by Massimo Vignelli while at Unimark. It’s less well known that Vignelli Associates (the company Massimo founded after he left Unimark) put in a bid to also design the system map.
The above are early exploratory concepts for the “Diagram of Lines”, as Vignelli preferred to call the map, probably dating to 1973. They range from sparse and minimalist to completely abstract, and definitely represent a very different approach to the thick, playful route lines of the eventual official map, designed by Lance Wyman.
Although Vignelli didn’t end up winning the contract for the map, he still had a huge effect on the way it looks today. Wyman originally planned to insert icons inside the circular disks that are used to denote stations on the map, but Vignelli argued that such an approach ran contrary to his (already approved) signage system. The WMATA board listened to Vignelli, and the icons were deleted from the map forever.