Hi! I made this transit diagram myself. I saw there was no “real” map with all the stations for the region of Arendal in Norway, so I decided to do this project. I would love to read your comments and criticisms!

Transit Maps says:

There’s a lot to like about this diagram – a nice pseudo-isometric effect with clean and simplified geography, an excellently-executed magnified inset overview of the Arendal bus terminal, and a comprehensive legend that fills the “dead” space of the map nicely. That said, I think there’s some room for improvement in a couple of areas:

First, the rush hour only services are too small and hard to make out compared to the other frequencies. The line used to depict them is too thin to follow easily, the station markers are hard to see, and the type used to label them is very small. Generally, I don’t like to use too many different type sizes on a map, preferring to let the weight of the font do the work for me: bold versus regular, etc. I feel that different type sizes can create an unbalanced design, with some labels becoming hard to read and others LITERALLY SHOUTING AT YOU. In this instance, it also leads to oddities like Bjorbekk loudly proclaiming that it’s a “main stop” when its next to two tiny little station markers, one of which is almost invisible. There’s a visual disconnect between the elements that creates confusion for the reader.

The diagram also feels a little unfinished around the edges. Where do the lines that leave the map go? Why do the lines heading off to the top right corner just end? Arrowheads and “To:” labels would be really helpful here.

Our final word: The framework is excellent, the information hierarchy just needs a bit more attention. Perhaps look at different ways to depict those rush hour only services – generally, they tend to be frequent but only run for limited periods, so perhaps a thicker dashed or cased line could work?