All posts filed under: Reviews

Review: New York Subway and Paris Métro Architecture and Design Maps by Blue Crow Media

December 8, 2019
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Gift Guide, Reviews
Tags:

Transit Maps previously reviewed Blue Crow’s London Underground Architecture and Design Map back in 2017, and they’ve just released two new maps in the series celebrating Paris and New York’s transit systems (there’s also another map in the series for Moscow). As before, the maps are simple but elegant in their execution, with a geographical map of the system on one side and the explanatory text and photos on the other. They come in handsome […]

Reader Question: Have You Heard of LineMap Draw?

September 17, 2018
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Questions, Reviews
Tags:

From an anonymous reader: Someone recently showed me an article in the magazine Railway Age that reviewed the software application LineMap Draw. Have you heard of it? Any thoughts about it? It says it would save time creating maps. It’s only available for PCs, so as a Mac-user, I’m not able try out the free demo. I am also skeptical about using it over a tried-and-true vector program like Illustrator. More info can be found […]

Submission – Mini Metro Game Adds “Retro” Maps

July 28, 2018
comment 1
Filed Under:
Reviews
Tags:

Not your typical “map” but the game Mini Metro recently released a 1972 Vignelli-inspired map of New York. (Early Paris and London too.) I love it. What are your thoughts? Transit Maps says: This update to the game has been around for a while, but I haven’t had the time to sit down and play seriously enough unlock the new “retro transit” levels. I got 999 once trying to unlock the old London map (you need […]

Review: London Underground Architecture and Design Map by Blue Crow Media

November 25, 2017
comment 1
Filed Under:
Reviews
Tags:

Blue Crow Media is an independent publisher of beautifully designed city guide maps on many subjects – you may be familiar with their “Brutalist Architecture” series – and this new map is the first in a planned series of maps about public transportation networks around the world. Edited by Mark Ovenden (of Transit Maps of the World fame) with some lovely photos by Will Scott, the map promises to be an authoritative guide to the design and architecture […]

Review: Mini Metro for Mobile Devices

October 25, 2016
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Reviews
Tags:

While Dinosaur Polo Club’s Mini Metro – the minimalistic subway building game – has been available for PC via the Steam gaming portal for some time now, it’s only just been ported to mobile devices in the last couple of weeks. Always on the lookout for a fun little game to while away my commute to work, I picked it up for my iPhone almost immediately. Really, how could someone who runs a blog called […]

Book Review: “Transit Maps of the World”, 2015 Revised Edition by Mark Ovenden

November 2, 2015
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Gift Guide, Reviews
Tags:

First published in the United Kingdom as Metro Maps of the World in 2003, this book has long been an indispensable reference book for graphic designers, train aficionados, cartographers, and geeks alike. However, its last major revision was in 2007 – and much has changed in the world of transit map design since then. More transit systems, new maps, revised maps, digital and web-based maps, the rise of the amateur map designer and more. Like […]

Book Review: “Vignelli Transit Maps”, Peter B. Lloyd with Mark Ovenden

April 1, 2013
Leave a comment
Filed Under:
Reviews
Tags:

As a graphic designer with a keen interest in transit maps and a fairly thorough knowledge of their history and usage, I thought I had a decent understanding of Massimo Vignelli’s diagrammatic version of the New York Subway map, which was used from 1972 to 1979. This outstanding book has proved me almost completely and utterly wrong. So much of what we think we know about the Vignelli map is simply hearsay and legend, repeated […]