U.S. Highways Map Accepted into NACIS “Atlas of Design”!

May 17, 2012
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Hey, everyone! I’m thrilled to be able to share some news with you that I just heard about! My U.S. Highways as Subway Map has been accepted for inclusion in the inaugural edition of the NACIS Atlas of Design. There were 150 entries, and only 27 maps – all by different creators – have been accepted, so you can see why I’m excited about this!

The Atlas itself promises to be superb, as evidenced by this excerpt from the project website:

The Atlas will feature a gallery of full-color maps showcasing cartography at its most beautiful, its cleverest, its sharpest, and its most intriguing. But it will be more than a museum of images; each map will be accompanied by thoughtful commentary that guides the reader toward a deeper understanding of the work: its inspiration and message, the ways it means to influence us. It is well to look upon something beautiful and good, but once we understand how it is beautiful and good, our experience becomes much richer. For those of us who make maps, we can carry those lessons into our own work and advance the craft of cartography. Even if you don’t make maps, it’s a chance to gain insight into what mapmakers really do, and to see how it’s about more than just pushing city dots and rivers around. Everyday objects become much more significant when we see what is behind their creation.

I can’t wait to see the other maps! For those of you unfamiliar with my work, here’s a link to the map’s project page on my personal website.

Historical Map: British Rail Greater London Network, 1965

May 17, 2012
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Here’s a fantastic map out of England in the mid-60s, showing British Rail service in the Greater London area. It’s almost staggering to think that a map this well drawn was created without the use of computers. I definitely recommend clicking through to the large image on Flickr to savour all the beautiful, crisp linework: this map is technically excellent.

Have we been there? Yes, and I’ve used many of the great London terminus stations, especially Victoria.

What we like: Fantastic mid-century design work. There’s an amazing consistency in design throughout, which makes the map flow beautifully. The icons for Underground connections (a red roundel) and station parking (a small blue square) are simple and understated, yet easily understood. Peak hour routes are grey, and local train services are thinner black lines, giving nice hierarchy to the information shown. Final destination information for each of the routes is nicely integrated around the edges of the map.

What we don’t like: The thin black tick mark used for stations has the unfortunate looking (although strangely appropriate) effect of making the route lines look like railway tracks. The dashed routes make the map look a little busy, especially towards the southwest, where there’s a huge profusion of blue-and-white routes out of Waterloo station.

Our rating: Superb example of great transit map design from the UK in the ‘60s. Four-and-a-half stars.

Source: smallritual/Flickr

Photo: 1978 New York Subway Map

May 16, 2012
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A detail of the Vignelli diagram.

Source: pressthebigredbutton/Flickr

Unofficial Map: St. Petersburg Metro, Russia

May 15, 2012
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I came across this map while browsing Flickr last night, and was totally blown away by it. This map of St. Petersburg’s Metro system is simply gorgeous and is far, far better than the current official map. Definitely one of my favourite maps of the year so far.

Have we been there? No.

What we like: So many things! The lovely pattern used for the waterways, the stylish icons for points of interest, the inclusion of the city’s bridges as reference points, the clever use of colour to differentiate the Cyrillic station names from their Romanised equivalents, the beautifully abstracted geography, the circle shape of the city limits (and the wonderful negative space it creates around the map)… I could go on and on.

What we don’t like: The placement of the interchange station markers where Lines 1 and 2, and also 2 and 3, cross could be a little better and more consistent with the other interchange stations. The placement of the station at the 2/3 interchange seems particularly odd, as the coloured dots don’t lie directly over the route line they represent.

Our rating: Astounding work. Clear, graphically bold, gorgeous, useful. 5 stars!

Source: k3sotnikova/Flickr

Official Map: Metro and Tramway, Marseille, France, 2012

May 15, 2012
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Not every transit map conforms to the Beck-inspired 45-degree angles norm. Many of these maps choose instead to be more geographically accurate, but some – such as this example from Marseille, France – veer towards the surreal, with routes careening crazily all over the place with little sense of aesthetics or clarity.

Have we been there? I spent half an hour at Marseille St. Charles waiting for a train to Nice, but haven’t ventured out into the city.

What we like: Not a lot.

What we don’t like: Just about everything. Let’s start with the appalling agency logo and move on from there. The route lines are terribly drawn, without any sense of flow or order at all – they almost seem scribbled on by someone who has no idea how the pen tool in Adobe Illustrator works. This map could be elegant if the curves in the routes were drawn properly and accentuated as a thoughtful part of the design, but as they are, the whole thing is just a mess.

I also can’t see why the Metro 2 Line is tinted back to pink instead of being red – all the other lines retain the full strength of their assigned colour, so why not this line?

Interchange stations are clumsily noted by a pink circle instead of the more usual linked circles or bars – full marks for trying something different, but I feel it doesn’t work very well and just adds visual clutter.

Finally, although station names, park and rides, and bus route numbers are all nicely boxed up, they never seem to combine into a coherent unit: sizes of elements don’t relate to each other, so stations like Bougainville and La Rose – which have a lot of connecting bus services – just look a complete mess.

Our rating: Bizarre and  ugly. 1 star.

Source: Official RTM website

Photo: Viewing the Every 15 Minutes (or Less) Map

May 14, 2012
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Source: Oran Viriyincy/Flickr

Historical Map: Metro de Madrid, 1981

May 9, 2012
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Having had a look at Madrid’s current map (2.5 stars), I thought we’d delve into the past and see what came before it. The first thing to notice is how much smaller the system was in 1981: only 10 Metro lines instead of 12 — and many of those are much shorter than now, and no light rail lines.

Have we been there? No.

What we like: A paragon of clean, functional transit map design. There’s great flow in this map, especially compared to the staccato, rigid, 90-degree matrix of the current map. Even without a legend, everything on this map is perfectly clear.

What we don’t like: Some minor station placement and labelling issues. Some route colours look similar (the 2 and 7, and the 9 and 10), but I think this is more to do with the age of the map that has been scanned than an issue with the design of the map itself.

Our rating: What can I say? I’m a sucker for simple, clean, well-designed maps. Four stars.

Source: Mikeyashworth/Flickr

Historical Map: Sydney Railway Map, 1939

May 8, 2012
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Just how influential was the original Harry Beck London Underground diagram of 1933? Certainly enough for Sydney, Australia to issue this nearly identical vision of its own suburban rail system in 1939, right down to its own version of the London Underground roundel. I’ve never been able to find out whether this map was authorised or licensed from the London Underground, or whether Sydney just thought, “that looks like a good idea, let’s do that!”

The prominent usage of the Underground icon is actually somewhat deceptive, as Sydney at the time had a grand total of four underground stations, all in the city – Town Hall, Wynyard, St James and Museum. Service levels in Sydney have also never matched those of a true Metro/Underground/Subway system, preferring to run large capacity trains with longer headways (commuter rail). However, it’s certainly clever to evoke images of the Mother Country’s glorious train system when you’re promoting your own, right?

Have we been there? Yes, just not in 1939.

What we like: Great early example of how Beck’s principles could be applied to other rail systems. Interesting view of the older Sydney system, with some stations shown that no longer exist (the ANZAC Rifle Range), and others that have changed their name (the lovely “Herne Bay” is now just boring old “Riverwood”, while the spectacularly named “Dumbleton” is now just “Beverly Hills”). Nice indication of the ongoing electrification of the system: the electrified lines are shown in bright, new colours, while the steam powered lines are plain black.

What we don’t like: Some confusing labelling of the stations between Central and Strathfield. I’m not entirely sure whether the colouring of the route lines actually matches up to service patterns of the day, making me wonder whether the map designer truly understood how diagrammatic maps are actually meant to work. A strange need to indicate long-distance train services on a suburban rail network map. Broken Hill? Albury? Brisbane?!

Our rating: Fascinating example of an early adopter of the Beck style of transit map, even if it’s not quite up to the same standard of draftsmanship. Three-and-a-half stars.

I sell prints of a digitally-recreated version of this map in my online store.

Source: Mikeyashworth/Flickr

Historical Map: Sydney CityRail Network Map, 1992

May 3, 2012
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Now this is the transit map of my youth. Sydney’s CityRail map went through a few different looks in the mid-80s and early-90s, but this is the one that sticks in my memory the most.

This map shows both the first growth in the system for a number of years with the extension of the East Hills line to Glenfield, but also the last remnants of the old with the vestigial Pippita branch still in existence. The Carlingford line has also yet to be assigned its now-distinctive navy blue colour, the Cumberland line doesn’t exist yet, the Airport line is still in early planning, and the Epping-Chatswood line hasn’t even begun to be thought of.

Have we been there? Home from age 5 to 35!

What we like: Ridiculous amounts of nostalgia. Clear and easy to follow – although the simplistic radial nature of the system (with all lines passing through Central station) also has something to do with this.

What we don’t like: Some uneven spacing of station names – the stations along the Richmond line in particular seem unnecessarily cramped, while the station names along the Carlingford line are oddly placed at a 45-degree angle when there’s plenty of room to fit them in horizontally.

There’s also some weird design idiosyncrasies that don’t reflect the service patterns offered at the time. The Richmond, Carlingford and Cronulla Lines are all shown as if they are spur lines, terminating where they join onto their respective main lines. In reality, all of these lines offered service that continued all the way into the city.

Strangest of all is the right-angle split of the Northern Line (Red) just south of Hornsby which gives absolutely no indication of which direction trains go in if they’re coming from Epping. North? South? Into a brick wall? 

Our rating: Pleasantly nostalgic, but not as brilliant as I remember it when viewed in the cold light of day. Three stars.

Source: NSWrail.webs.net Map Archive – link no longer active