Submitted by long time contributor, Kara Fischer, who asks:

Clever idea? Or useless eye-candy?

Transit Maps says:

Definitely just eye-candy, and really only made because of the terrible ‘El’ements pun in the title. It’s certainly not useful in any meaningful way and doesn’t bear anything but a superficial resemblance to the actual periodic table of elements. 

Dmitri Mendeleev’s periodic table, by the way, is one of the most information-dense infographics ever, with both the rows and columns revealing important information about the elements in addition to the information contained within each cell. A new row (or period – hence the name of the table) is started when a new electron shell has its first electron. Columns (groups) are determined by the electron configuration of the atom; elements with the same number of electrons in a particular subshell fall into the same columns. It’s so good that it was used to predict the properties of elements before they were discovered or synthesised.

This, on the other hand, is a glorified list of stations arranged in a grid and coloured to make it look just enough like a periodic table. As the “elemental symbols” are always just the first letter of each station’s name, there’s a slew of repeated letters everywhere – unlike a periodic table where each symbol is an unique identifier for each element. 

Our rating: Not a map, not a meaningful table of information – just a visual to support a pretty terrible gag. It is nicely put together, though: just not my cup of tea.

Source: TransitTees.com