Submitted by Jesse, who says:

Inspired by your re-make of the Paris Metro maps, I went and re-made from scratch this map of Berlin from 1952. I used DIN Pro, which seemed like the closest match. I took a few liberties with some of the colors and symbols here and then, but for the most part I’ve tried to stick to the original as closely as possible. Would love to hear what you think!

Transit Maps says:

This is great work that seems to accurately follow the original map very closely (with a couple of notable exceptions that I’ll get too soon). 

Firstly – DIN is absolutely the right choice for the typeface, as that’s pretty much what was used originally. The name “DIN” actually refers to the Deutsches Institut für Normung (German Institute for Standardization), which defined the typeface – widely used for traffic, administrative and technical uses, especially in Germany – in DIN standard sheet 1451 (hence the common name for the font, DIN 1451) in 1931. The relatively coarse printing in the original map makes the letterforms look a little rougher than in Jesse’s version, but it’s basically exactly the same.

The first issue I have with Jesse’s version is his treatment of the borders between the four separate zones of the divided Berlin. He’s used some kind of stroked path for the wider, lighter part of the borders, which looks okay, except where the path folds back over itself, creating an unsightly overlapping effect. Studying the original map, I’m pretty certain that this lighter border is simply a 20- 30% tint of the full strength border olive colour, and that Jesse has misinterpreted the halftone dot pattern as his stroked path. His error is understandable though, given the low resolution of the source material.

My second gripe is with Jesse’s introduction of an extra colour (blue) to show the privat-und kleinbahnen (private and small railways). Part of the challenge in these historical recreations is working out exactly how they were originally printed and then emulating that with modern software and techniques. Printing was far more primitive back in the 1950s, and map designers had to make things work with limited colour palettes and dodgy registration. Looking at the original, I believe it was printed with five separate inks: red, green, and black, with brown for the U-Bahn and small railways, and what looks like olive for the sektorengrenze. The two types of minor railway were differentiated by different types of lines – the U-Bahn just had a solid line, while the small railroads were “ticked” along one side of the line – rather than by the introduction of a sixth colour, which would have increased both the expense and the technical challenges of printing the map.

I’d also say in passing that all of Jesse’s colours seem a little “blue” or “cold” – perhaps an overcorrection from the yellowed paper of the original? I’d definitely bring the red back to a standard M100 Y100 and warm the green up just a tad.

Overall, though – I really like this recreation and can definitely appreciate the effort that Jesse has put into it. Nice work!