A lesson in how not to add station labels to a strip map: type at five different angles makes things incredibly hard to read. Also not to be recommended for legibility is the all-caps treatment of station names. This would work much better if the route line was pushed to the top of the strip, with all stations spaced equally and type set at one consistent angle across the entire diagram. Source: A2DAC1985/Flickr
arnorian: A skyview of Manhattan with overlaid subway and rail lines. 7 Subway Extension, the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway, and East Side Access included. Another fantastic aerial photo/subway routes mash-up from Arnorian – a companion piece to this very popular piece that shows more of New York and New Jersey. What I really like about this is that you can make out individual buildings and streets quite easily – the Empire State […]
Sweet illustrated map of bus routes in the East Bay, including a multitude of transbay services: I count 16 crossing the Bay Bridge to San Francisco! As with all maps of this ilk, the fun part is finding all the little details in the illustrations that are liberally scattered throughout (My favourite is probably the sailor who is busily chatting up the cute nurse at the top centre of the map). The subtle painted texture […]
Last week’s tip about using the Offset Path command in Illustrator to create multiple parallel paths was very well received, but reader Leah left a comment saying that she finds using Art Brushes quicker and easier. If nothing else, it’s good to be reminded that there are always different ways to achieve the same result! Setting up an Art Brush for what we want to do is actually pretty simple. Simply create a short section […]
Wishing you all a happy and safe holiday season! Thanks to all of you – readers,contributors, rebloggers, retweeters, and lurkers – for another rewarding year at the helm of Transit Maps. I really couldn’t do it without you! All the best, Cameron
Although it seems as though at least one person thought it was… Source: Dave Gorman/Flickr
A light-hearted and off-beat map/infographic for you today – one that shows the distance, type and cost of public toilets near metro stations in Stockholm, Sweden. Hopefully, the map was not borne out of Pruek’s inability to find a facility when in dire need! The graphic is nicely put together, and functions well as both a (simple) transit map and an informational graphic. It has one of the nicest examples of “candy-striping” the route lines […]
Very aesthetically appealing infographic that compares 18 circle railway lines from around the world. The top part of the graphic displays the lines in a schematic fashion, representing each by its average diameter. The stations that comprise each line are then simply spaced evenly around the circumference to create a very striking pattern. Stations that interchange with other lines are represented by placing a small white dot in the centre of a station’s marker. Below, […]
Have I ever mentioned how much I love my readers? I posted about this map last Monday, praising its visual clarity, but also lamenting the fact that I didn’t have a higher resolution version of it to really savour the details. Almost immediately, I got a submission from Alain Lemaire, who generously sent me full high-resolution scans of the whole map from his personal collection. He provided me with four separate scans, one for each […]
A neat little map from the July, 1945 edition of the Electric Railroader’s Association’s Headlights magazine – both the association and the publication are still going strong today. The map shows all the tracks in the Big Easy at the time, including those that were in usable condition but not currently utilised (indicated by a hash across the track). Routes are indicated by letters that were keyed to the text of the original article – […]
