Great photo of a handsome rectilinear diagram of island-wide bus services in Iceland from back in 2005. The big blue blobs in the middle aren’t lakes, they’re glaciers. Reykjavik’s importance as the main transportation hub is well illustrated. Source: Arnþór Snær/Flickr
Based on feedback from the first draft of this new version of my Amtrak as subway map, I’ve gone and made a few edits, additions and corrections. The major revision is a reworking of the main section of the Northeast Corridor between New York and Washington to make things a little clearer. I’m still using overlapping “multiplied route colour” lines to indicate identical service patterns, but I’ve broken the routes down into smaller, thematically linked groups: the three […]
I saw the animated GIF above on Twitter yesterday, and Shawn was kind enough to share the whole map with me, so I present it here. As Shawn himself says: I took Vignelli’s color contrast + existing map’s geographic accuracy = the subway map of my dreams. … cheekily addressing the MTA’s Twitter account and asking them to “please fix.” Shawn’s revision definitely allows the subway lines (without doubt, the most important element of the map) […]
Submitted by Nick, who says: I’ve attached my draft map of an imaginary rail system for Connecticut — if you have time, I’d love to get your feedback! We have little to nothing in the way of public transit that serves people who want to travel around and not just through Connecticut. We have some great bus systems (and our first BRT system!), but we’re served by rail lines that are used primarily for commuters […]
After complaining on Twitter about how I found information in Amtrak’s timetables difficult to decipher, I decided to put my money where my mouth is and do a quick little redesign to prove my point. The brief to myself: it had to contain all the same information, use the same typeface (Frutiger), and fit in the same space as the original. Everything else was fair game, including colours, as the timetables are printed in four-colour brochures. However, […]
Not the first Louisville fantasy map that I’ve featured – see Peter Dovak’s map here (March 2013) – but this one takes quite a different approach. It’s certainly grander in scale than Peter’s modest two-line system. I will say that I adore the colour palette of this map: the muted background, river and parklands are lovely, and work nicely with the route line colours, which are also a little knocked back from the normal solid […]
Sent my way by Dennis, who says: Today’s offering is spurred by news of a new Muni map showing frequency of service. Here’s the one I created for personal amusement in 1982. As you can see, the technology was a bit more primitive: Rapidograph technical pens, a calligraphy pen, and crepe-paper tape on tracing paper. The rest of the page (of a visitors guide I made for friends) was typewritten. Transit Maps says: Nice and simple – […]
At the end of April 2015, Amtrak's Hoosier State service between Chicago and Indianapolis is scheduled to be discontinued — the first complete loss of a service since I created my "Amtrak as Subway Map" way back in 2010. Over the years, I've been pretty vigilant to changes to the Amtrak network — adding and deleting stations as required, extending the Downeaster Line to Brunswick and the Northeast Regional to Norfolk — but a change of this magnitude gives me the chance to take a completely fresh look at this project and rework everything from scratch, instead of just tweaking the old diagram again. Let's face it – I've learned a lot of new skills and tricks in the intervening years!
Sent my way by Brian Stokle on Twitter. I have to say that “Dark City” isn’t a movie I’m familiar with, although it had a pretty good cast – Kiefer Sutherland, Jennifer Connelly, Ian Richardson and William Hurt. Let’s see: dystopian future… things aren’t what they seem… memory loss… framed for a crime he didn’t commit… the movie certainly ticks all the “1990s sci-fi movie” boxes, that’s for sure. Needless to say, “Shell Beach” is […]
More proof of just how ingrained the Tube Map is in the English psyche is evident in this billboard advertisement for Double Diamond beer – inserted as the punchline in the long-running “Only here for the beer!” campaign. The ad campaign itself is almost as much as part of England as the Tube Map; the tag line has entered into the vernacular, much like “Where’s the beef?” in the U.S., and “Not happy, Jan!” in […]
