Month: September 2012

Fantasy Map: FF Yoga and FF Yoga Sans Font Sample (2009)

September 30, 2012
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Designed to showcase two new typeface families from the FontFont foundry, this “Metro map” looks quite spectacular at first glance, with some lovely colour combinations and design details. It’s only on closer inspection that you realise that it’s actually a superb piece of nonsense – nothing really makes any sense at all. Most type – apart from the few major “stations” – is way too small to be useful, and the circled line designations are […]

Photo: The Colors of Public Transit

September 28, 2012
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I love, love, love this photo of wayfinding signage in Chicago. Anyone know which station this is? I’m guessing one of the Wabash stations on the Loop, but don’t know enough about them to narrow it down further. Edit: Knowledgeable readers have identified this sign as being at Clark/Lake station – thanks! Source: k.james/Flickr

Official Map: The Wave Bus Network, Nantucket, MA

September 27, 2012
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Here’s a nice little bus network map sent my way by long time Twitter follower, Gordon Werner. Designed by Smartmaps, Inc., it shows the seasonal shuttle bus service on Nantucket Island, known as “The Wave”. Almost predictably, “Ride the Wave!” is their slogan. Is the surf even that good in Nantucket? Have we been there? No — only to the next island over, Martha’s Vineyard. What we like: Nicely executed, attractive looking bus route map […]

Glorious Vintage London Underground Posters!

September 27, 2012
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theoinglis: “London Transport Museum holds over 5,000 posters and artworks in its archives and, on October 4, 2012, some 300 original London Underground advertising posters from its collection will be auctioned for sale through Christie’s South Kensington saleroom. Demand at the auction is likely to be high but if you can’t afford an original, reprints of the images shown here are available through the London Transport Museum shop. You can see more of the posters for sale on […]

Photo — Historical Map: Boston Sights

September 25, 2012
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Boston seems to rival only Washington, DC for old system maps being left in place at stations and on trains. This photo was taken in August of this year, but the map dates from between 2004 to 2008 (the extension of the Silver Line to City Point is the giveaway). I’d probably lean towards the earlier end of that range, due to the “Silver Line Waterfront” designation. One thing to note is how much cleaner […]

Fantasy Map: Biergärten in München

September 24, 2012
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Oktoberfest started yesterday in Munich, so I thought it would be appropriate to share this fun little map from 2008 of Munich’s beer gardens laid out in the familiar style of that city’s S- and U-Bahn map. However, beware! Although this map looks quite similar to the official one, the “lines” shown here don’t seem to correlate to the actual routes in real life — I would not recommend using this map on your Munich […]

Advertisement: Barclays Center “Minutes From Everywhere”

September 24, 2012
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How to sell New Yorkers on a new stadium: point out they don’t have to drive to it. (Source: ad in the 2nd Avenue F train station.) The problem with doing a subway-themed ad that will appear in the actual subway itself is that it’s not allowed to look anything like the official map. So we end up with this weird Vignelli wannabe instead. However, it does get its point across quite effectively, so in […]

Fantasy Map: Grand Theft Auto IV Liberty City Subway

September 19, 2012
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By all accounts, Grand Theft Auto IV is a pretty awesome game. However, it would seem that the game’s designers are lousy urban planners, as this has to be the most ridiculous subway layout I have ever seen. Seriously, it looks like two racetrack layouts from a 1990s video game have been superimposed on the city with some stations added at random. What is the point of the northern track between Huntington St and the […]