Author: Cameron Booth

Fantasy Map: Deutsche Bahn ICE Network as a U-Bahn Map

December 9, 2011
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Clever work here from the German office of Ogilvy Advertising, taking the familiar iconography of a typical German-styled U-Bahn map and applying it — and its associated promises of rapid, frequent service — to the Germany-wide ICE (high-speed train) network. My only problem with this work is that the shape of the network bears little resemblance to Germany itself, probably because of the landscape format of the bilboard. Source: Viralbuzz.de and Design Made in Germany

Historical Maps: Man-Made Philadelphia, 1972

December 8, 2011
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One last view of Philadelphia transit via these amazing diagrams from a 1972 book by Richard Saul Wurman from the MIT Press, “Man-Made Philadelphia”, now sadly out of print. As well as the train network, there’s also buses, highways and the growth of the city. Definitely loving the early 70s mimimalism design vibe to these. Looks like they were all produced specially for the book. Source: rjwhite/Flickr

Historical Map: Philadelphia SEPTA Map, c. 1979-1980

December 7, 2011
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A reblog by cranialdetritus of yesterday’s featured SEPTA map asked whether I had covered the SEPTA maps of the 1970s yet. I hadn’t, and tracking down an image proved a little tricky. The best I can find is a modern redrawing of the map from around 1979-1980 – credit to Lucius Kwok of Felt Tip Software for this work. It seems to be a quite accurate rendition, as the photo below – showing part of […]

Official Map: Philadelphia SEPTA Network, 2011

December 6, 2011
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After quite a few stellar maps, it’s time to show what I consider to be one of the least successful transit maps in current use in the US. To put it bluntly, SEPTA’s map is an unappealing, jumbled mess and certainly does not get me excited to use their system (a major plus point in my internal scoring system). Have we been there? No. What we like: Deserves credit for attempting to show so many […]

Fantasy Map: Appalachian Trail Subway

December 3, 2011
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From Stonebrown Design comes this clever “subway” map of the famous Appalachian Trail, a hiking path that stretches some 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine. Normally confined to detailed topographical maps, here it has been simplified to its very basic elements — a path, stops along the way and state lines. Clever work. Have we been there? No, but I have a friend who thru-hiked the whole trail and loved every second of it. What […]

Unofficial Map: New York Subway by Alex Koplin

December 2, 2011
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New York is continuing its time in the spotlight here at Transit Maps with this brand new subway map by designer Alex Koplin. Looking for all the world like the love-child of the Vignelli diagram and the current MTA map, this is a seriously impressive piece of work that a lot of thought has clearly gone into. I know from experience how difficult it can be to reinvent something that people are familiar with, and […]

Fantasy Map: Vignelli-Style New York Subway Ampersand

November 30, 2011
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It’s NYC day here at Transit Maps! This impressive work by Pentagram’s Luke Hayman for Amsterdam-based interior design magazine Eigen Huis & Interieur combines their masthead ampersand with Massimo Vignelli’s subway map. Created for the magazine’s New York issue, the map’s “stations” represent New York design icons, people and institutions. Our rating: Awesome! Five stars!

Historical Map: New York Subway, 1966

November 30, 2011
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The main arguments against Massimo Vignelli’s masterful 1972 diagrammatic map of the New York Subway are that New York never had a diagram before and hated it, and that it distorted the geography too much (the usual example given is the compression of Central Park into a square instead of its actual rectangle). However, this map – the immediate predecessor to the Vignelli map and used in various forms from around 1958 to 1972 – […]