Photo: New York Subway Map Cake
Now that’s some nice icing! Source: smitten/Flickr
Month: September 2012
Historical Map: Birds-Eye View of Chicago, 1908
Courtesy of the always amazing Big Map Blog (you really should follow them on Twitter), here’s an incredible birds-eye view of Chicago and its elevated railways from 1908. More than anything, I love the minute attention to detail on this – smoke curls from factory chimneys, almost every tree in the city’s parks seems to be present. Of particular note is the spur line out to Union Stock Yards, the self-proclaimed “butchery capital of the […]
Photo: Old Paris Metro Map (Detail), c. 1969-1977
This is simply gorgeous. The fact that the RER terminates at Nation dates this map from between 1969 (when the RATP first purchased the line from the SNCF) and 1977 (when the line was extended through Paris and became the RER “A” line we know today). The original post on Flickr does not note where this map is (or was) located. Source: lionelofparis/Flickr
Photo: Bus Maps, Seoul, South Korea
Probably actually a lot easier to use than they first appear. Source: riNux/Flickr
Historical Map: Paris Métro, 1913
Yes, another post about the Paris Métro. I’d stop doing it if I stopped finding really interesting maps! This one is from way back in 1913, and is purportedly the first Métro map to use different colours for each of the lines and the first one to have strip plans for each of them as well. Another thing to note is that this is a mere thirteen years after the Métro opened – and there’s […]
Montreal Metro Board Game
Sent my way by Twitter user @andrewsalzberg, here’s another board game based on a transit system – this time, Montreal’s Metro! (Readers may remember this post about “The London Game”, a board game based on the London Underground.) Looks like a pretty simple “race” game, but it captures the aesthetics of the actual map quite nicely. Source: Openalex website – link no longer active
Official Map: Sydney CityRail Network Map, 2012
Here’s a map that has been requested quite a few times, but I’ve held off on until now. Having lived in Sydney most of my life, I think it’s difficult to be dispassionate about something I’m so familiar with… but here goes! Have we been there? You know it! What we like: Clear and easy to understand. Different types of services are denoted well, but in a nicely understated way: grey lines with coloured ticks […]
Unofficial Map: San Francisco BART Reductio ad Absurdum
I was reminded today of this work — one of my favourite transit map design exercises of all time from the always interesting Burrito Justice website. A ridiculously minimalist “hyperlinear” version of the BART map, it actually holds up surprisingly well as a navigational tool. Of course, something like this only works for a relatively simple system like BART. Source: comments thread of this post on the Burrito Justice site
Historical Map: Detail of New York Subway Map, Post 9/11
Released by the MTA just eight days after 9/11, this map shows how radically lower Manhattan service was affected. Source: 2nd Ave Sagas website
Unofficial Map: London Tube Map as Electrical Circuit Board by Yuri Suzuki
Created for an exhibition at the London Design Museum, I believe this is also a functional radio as well as a kick-ass representation of the London Underground. The intricate level of detail just has to be seen to be believed. Can I have one? I’ve seen a few comments around the Internet that this piece brings the Tube Map full circle as Harry Beck was an electrical draughtsman who based his design off circuit diagrams. […]