Submission – Fantasy Map: Tram Network for Bristol, England by Elliott Sargent

January 23, 2023
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Submitted by Elliott, who says:

I’ve been a fan of your work for a while now, and thought I’d submit my own work for judgement.

I’ve had a crack at designing a map for an as-yet non-existent tram and bus network for Bristol, UK, a city in dire need of reliable, integrated public transport. It would operate as a network of 19 tram lines in and around the urban area of Bristol, with five ‘metrobus’ routes linking the city to nearby commuter towns. Whilst there’s still a huge struggle between residents of the city, campaign groups and the city’s councils, I tried to envisage what a network could one day look like.

I had a few problems in terms of design, particularly trying to distinguish the separate bus routes apart from the rest of the tram network. The city centre orbital route also operates as part of each branch line, with trains running clockwise before branching out into the suburbs, and needed to find a way of denoting this (eventually with arrows and graduated lines).

I’d look forward to hearing your thoughts!

Transit Maps says:

Thanks for your submission, Elliott! I like both the way this diagram looks and your boundless ambition when it comes to envisioning a future for transit in Bristol! While normally I steer clear of commenting on the feasibility of networks depicted in fantasy maps, I will just say that running the trams from 19 feeder lines around a one-way downtown loop sounds a little… problematic.

That aside, the diagram is certainly striking, with its central focal point and use of only 90-degree angles. The liberal use of locality names throughout the map mitigates the lack of geographical cues, though it might still be hard work for non-locals to relate this diagram to the real world. The choice to show that central loop as a solid black with all the other lines fading into it is probably a wise one, though it might be a good idea to not use black (or any really dark colours) for any of the other lines – note how Lines 4 and 12 take on more prominence because that fading effect is not present: it almost looks like there’s one through-running route between the two termini.

A few thoughts – I think your station labelling is a little small. A good starting point is to make the x-height of your labels the same height as the thickness of your route lines and see how that looks/adjust from there. The typeface used, while clean and distinctive has a few quirks that hamper legibility: the ampersand (&) looks way too much like a lower-case “e” for my liking, and Oldstyle numerals – where some characters are smaller than others or drop below the baseline – are something I find just a bit too idiosyncratic for good transit map design. If your typeface is an Opentype font, you may be able to change the numerals from “Oldstyle” to “Lining”, where all the glyphs are of equal height and always sit uniformly on the baseline.

I have to say that I found it hard work to differentiate between the tram and bus routes at first glance: while the bus routes are thinner than the tram routes, it’s not enough to be able to quickly tell them apart. Some things to consider might be an obviously different line style or distinctive colour for the bus lines, and maybe changing the shape of the bullets to a square instead of a circle for that instant visual difference.

Another thing I’d like to see is your line numbering doing more work to help make sense of the system. At the moment, it all seems a little random. You could maybe number the routes sequentially in order clockwise around the map, starting from the 12-o’clock position and paying close attention to the ending position of any branching lines to keep them in the correct sequential order – the outer terminus of 1a should appear before 1b, for example: it’s the other way around on the diagram at present. Alternatively, you could perhaps bundle routes from each “exit point” of the downtown loop with related numbers… maybe “T1″ through “T5″ for all the routes that exit via Temple Meads, for example. Either of these approaches would also have the advantage of bundling all the routes together properly in the legend. Using the above example, all the Temple Meads services would run neatly after each other instead of being spread randomly throughout the legend as they currently are. Routes 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8; or routes T1, T2, T3, T4 and T5 both make a lot more sense than routes 4, 7, 8, 17 and 18! Help your users find the information they need!

Our final word: A really well-drawn diagram of this expansive fantasy network: it just needs a little more attention to detail to really make it work for me. A great start!

Submission – Official Map: TRAM d’Alacant Fare Zones, 2023

January 20, 2023
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Submitted by Roberto, who says:

I would like to share the TRAM d’Alacant fare zone map. It describes the different zones and stops of this tramway/narrow gauge train in the Spanish province of Alacant (Alicante). It’s been reopened recently after six years of renovation works.

Transit Maps says:

This is a fairly solid diagram that shares a lot of design language with the transit map of Valencia (reviewed in July 2022). This is perhaps understandable, as it seems that the Generalitat Valenciana has at least overseen the design of both maps. Like Valencia, the main urban area (Zone A) has been expanded in relation to the rest of the map, which is basically one corridor running up the coast to Dénia some 45 miles/70 kilometres away. The city is similarly represented more geographically, while the outer reaches are diagrammatic with evenly spaced stations from one end to the other.

Line 3 (Yellow) acts a local service for Line 1 (Red), which runs express within the urban limits of Alacant most of the time – the legend explains that first and last trains each day on Line 1 stop at all stations. This is indicated by the red line being visible through the white “shared station” symbol, which I don’t find particularly intuitive – I wonder whether a dot on Line 3 with a longer tick line crossing Line 1 would have been more effective?

I have two main issues with this otherwise competent diagram. First, the representation of the coastline is overly fussy and poorly drawn. Do we need the little bumps near Benidorm? Or the wharf (or whatever the heck that is) near Calp? And if it is somehow important to show the port/marina area in Alacant itself, then show it properly, instead of cutting it off at the bottom of the canvas. The non-standard angles at the top of the diagram used to represent Cap Martí drive me insane.

Secondly, the legend looks like an afterthought just thrown down wherever. As with the Valencia map, the legend inexplicably gets broken up by a zone boundary when there’s plenty of room to fit it all within Zone B’s space. The typesetting is also poor – some entries have a very long first line (longer than an optimal reading length) and then a very short second line. It’d be much better to balance those lines evenly to create a more compact, readable block of text. I’m also a proponent of always starting a new line with each change of language, instead of running them one after another on a single line – it just makes it explicit that a change is taking place.

Our final word: Competent enough, but let down by some strangely unpolished design choices with the coastline and legend. Does the job.

Source: TRAM website

Historical Map: Argentine Railways, 1907

January 17, 2023
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Now this is a map! This is just superb cartography: detailed, clear and lovely to look at. I love the way that brown is used for mountainous features, and a light blue is used for water features – it allows this information to be visible, but it doesn’t compete with the overlaid railroad lines. The map is packed with other information as well – note the three rail gauges in use in Argentina at the time.

One thing I do find a bit disturbing is the way that past librarians recorded information about the map – physical dimensions, scale calculations, library collection numbers, etc. – in pencil on the map itself. It’s okay if it’s a discreet annotation in the margin, but this map has more than the norm.

Here’s a detail for the area around Buenos Aires – just gorgeous:

Source: Norman B. Leventhal Map Center/Boston Public Library

Unofficial Maps: Two new takes on the London Underground by Kenneth Field

January 12, 2023
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Back in 2019, Ken showcased an experimental alternative Tube Map based on a diamond motif (read the Transit Maps review here) that had mixed reactions from the community. He went away and absorbed that feedback, and – like a glutton for punishment – he’s back with not one, but two new maps. Like many people, Ken believes the current Tube Map is nearly at the end of its useful life and wants to explore new concepts and idioms to map the sprawling system now and into the future.

The first map (above) is a nicely reworked version of that 2019 attempt, and addresses a lot of the issues that I had with it at the time. The removal of most of the diamond shapes makes for a less contrived design; type is larger throughout; design elements are applied more consistently; and the addition of Thameslink services to the map really helps with the overall balance of the design – filling in a lot of the empty space south of the Thames. It’s not perfect, but this is a pretty solid attempt when working within the confines of the way that the rail network is currently defined – the line names, colours and modes (e.g., Tube lines all get individual colours, but all of the Overground is relegated to the same orange).

However, the second map is where Ken throws everything out and starts completely anew, and this is where things get interesting.

On this map, all the traditional Tube Map nomenclature (Piccadilly, Bakerloo, etc.) has been reduced in importance and the many and varied route colours have been consolidated to instead represent different travel modes – deep Tube (blue), sub-surface Tube (green), Overground (salmon), Crossrail (purple representing both the Elizabeth Line and Thameslink), elevated rail (retaining the DLR’s teal), and tram (a dull olive). One could argue that differentiating between deep and sub-surface Tube lines as separate modes is splitting hairs, but the extra colour does help give some definition and form to the map, so I’ll allow it. Ken says that the chosen colours work well for colour-blind users, but I’d still like to see a little tweaking of them to make for a brighter, more visually appealing palette.

Alongside this new approach, Ken’s worked hard to encode service pattern information into the map, using a detailed legend and colour-coded terminus markers. It’s a startlingly comprehensive approach, and very much at odds with the current Tube Map, which makes absolutely no attempt to show service patterns. The terminus markers are perhaps a bit small for my liking, and I’m not sure that Johnston Sans works that well reversed out of a coloured background at those small sizes. I’d look for a complementary, less idiosyncratic sans serif that’s a little bolder for this information… a new approach is allowed to use a new typeface when it’s needed! The legend itself could also use a bit of work to make it more readable and consistent… the first column has sub-entries indented, but columns two and three don’t, for example. Good information design principles should also apply to a map’s supporting information! Speaking of which, you may have noticed that Ken’s maps dispense with zone and accessibility information altogether. As he has noted, this information is all listed in the station index on the back of the printed journey planner, so does it need to be duplicated on the map itself?

I’ll note here that one thing I do love about Ken’s maps is his sense of humour… Pink Floyd’s “flying pig” is floating above Battersea Power Station, and there’s a new “Wombling Free” station on the District Line between Southfields and Wimbledon Park – completing the full title for the map, “Underground, Overground, Wombling Free“. Presumably the station serves nearby Wimbledon Common?

Our final word: Most transit map designers are content with one attempt at reworking the Tube Map, but Ken’s come back for seconds and thirds like some kind of map-making Hobbit. Most other designers are also content to remain within the existing fabric of the map’s design language, but Ken’s not afraid to throw it all out and start from scratch, and for that he has to be commended. It may not be everyone’s cup of tea, but at least it can start a discussion about possible alternatives to the current official map.

Source: Ken’s Cartoblography site

New Official Map: San Francisco Muni Metro Map with Central Subway

January 7, 2023
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This map has actually been out for a while, but today – celebrating the full opening of the Central Subway – seemed like the appropriate day to post about it.

Design-wise, this is very much an evolution of previous efforts (see my review of the post-COVID resumption of service map here) and thus shares many of the same features and faults. I still don’t agree with the decision to have station labels set in the same colour as their route lines – it looks disjointed and some colours (especially yellow, but also light blue) have poor contrast with the white background. Pick one dark colour (black or even the N–Judah’s dark blue) and use it for all labels throughout for a consistent look.

However, the main question here is how well the Central Subway has been integrated into the map, and the answer is… probably about as well as it could have been. Muni certainly hasn’t helped itself by giving the new interchange with Powell station a really long name – “Union Square/Market St”. This necessarily has to be set on two lines, forcing a huge gap between Powell and Montgomery along Market Street. “Yerba Buena/Moscone” isn’t much better, but at least that fits fairly neatly into the space provided. But seriously, transit agencies – pick one name for your stations and just roll with it instead of trying to appease everyone. Announcements or signage can take care of the secondary information: “Alight here for the Moscone Center”.

While accurate to the real-world configuration, the representation of 4th & King station seems overly fussy for a simplified diagram like this. Would it just look a bit cleaner if the routes didn’t cross over each other? Another fussy detail is the weird curve that BART takes between Civic Center and 16th St/Mission, inserted purely out of the need to make room for the Church & Market station label on the J–Church line.

Overall, I feel like there’s a lot of random chaotic energy in this diagram. Part of that comes from the decision to only label accessible stations, which is understandable but also makes the diagram feel half-finished somehow. The placement of labels also comes across as a bit haphazard, especially along the southern leg of the T–Third St, where the labels alternate on each side of the route. I’d like to see a solution where all those labels are moved to the right of the route, which would then allow all the BART station labels to move to the right of their route line and so on… creating more consistency across the whole diagram.

I do find it odd that the diagram has giant route bullets at the bottom as a sort of legend, but then chooses not to use the bullets again at the end of each line. Use of bullets for route identification on the actual diagram is regarded as a best practice these days, seen on many maps worldwide. Personally, I’d find a way to move the big bullets to the bar at the top of the diagram, so I could push the boxed legend to the left and use the extra space to make the T-Third St line a bit longer to allow all those labels to be on the right as suggested above.

Our final word: Very much a logical evolution of the typical Muni Metro diagram style, though I do wish it was a little more orderly in the way it presents information. I do like the animation that Muni has made showing the way all the lines work, though!

Source: Muni Metro website

Fantasy Maps: “Scream VI” Subway Poster – Official and Unofficial

January 3, 2023
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The next installment of the venerable Scream franchise will be hitting the silver screen soon, and a new poster promoting it was released on January 1. Seeing as the movie is set in New York and the first trailer has shown that the subway plays a part in the plot, it almost seems inevitable that the poster would riff on a subway map theme. Here, each route line corresponds to a movie, with Line 6 – the upcoming film – cleverly shown as being “under construction”. Altogether, the lines form a rough outline of the famous “Ghost Face” mask.

I haven’t paid that much attention to the franchise since I saw the first one way back in 1996, but I believe that the “station” names on each line correspond to who dies in each movie, though fans are picking through it in much finer detail than I care to. One thing this means is that this actually isn’t a very good subway map, as there’s very little interchange between lines: once you’re dead in one movie, you’re not coming back in the next one (or are you?). Some New York subway map purists are also taking the poster to task for playing fast and loose with the line colours – to them, the 1, 2 and 3 should all be red, and the 4, 5 and 6 should all be green. However, that would make a pretty dull poster!

However, the main talking point here isn’t the poster itself, but its perceived similarity to a fan-made poster by Gil Marcel, first posted to his Instagram account on December 3, 2022 – just under a month before the official poster was released.

Like the official poster, Gil’s assigns a line to each movie, but defines the “Ghost Face” more with geographical features than the lines themselves. As a result, his design perhaps evokes the actual New York subway map more than the official poster, which seems a little more generic.

It’s had a lot of people crying plagiarism and theft of design (though Gil himself is being more diplomatic), but I’m not entirely convinced. First off – given the movie’s location and plot, this basic concept is almost guaranteed to be one of the first things that any graphic designer worth their salt would think of. It’s almost a no brainer, and many art directors that I’ve worked under would dismiss it as being “too obvious”, wanting me to push harder for a more original idea. To my mind, it’s entirely plausible that these two concepts were arrived at independently of each other.

Secondly, the gap of a a month between Gil first posting his concept and the official poster being released isn’t necessarily as damning as it looks. It’s very possible that the official poster started development long before December 3, but had to cycle through multiple iterations and approvals before being released – things don’t always move fast when there’s multiple stakeholders in play.

So what do you think? Coincidence or plagiarism? Which one is the better executed? Is it even a good concept to begin with?

Sources: Scream/Twitter and Gil Marcel/Instagram

Tutorial: Adobe Illustrator 2023’s New “Intertwine” Feature

November 27, 2022
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In which I finally make a video tutorial because the amount of screenshots needed to explain this would have been ridiculous. Let me know what you think; there may be more video tutorial content in the future!

Pros: Does what it says it will, fairly intuitive to work with.

Cons: Messes with your layer structure, any normal layout edits after applying Intertwine are trickier.

Overall: Tough to see how it provides a benefit over the traditional method of just having a top layer that does the “intertwining” for you.

Source: Cameron Booth/Vimeo

Historical Map: 1962 Rose City Transit Bus Map, Portland, Oregon

November 18, 2022
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Here’s a map from a rarely-seen era of Portland, Oregon’s transit history – the period of time between the end of the streetcar era and the emergence of the current transit operator, TriMet in 1969. The Rose City Transit Company (with their lovely casual script logo and friendly “Rosy” nickname) operated bus service within the Portland city limits from 1956 until TriMet was formed.

Under RTC’s watch, the last of Portland’s trolleybuses were phased out and bus routes were consolidated considerably – many routes linked into crosstown pairs through downtown instead of terminating there (some routes like the 4 and 35 still act like this even today!). The numbering of routes on the map is somewhat misleading, as these numbers only act as keys to the actual route names listed below the map – Rose City Transit never used route numbers on headboards, only destination names. The pairing of routes is not made clear by the map, despite the blurb to the left implying that it does.

The map itself is fairly rudimentary, with thick black lines overlaid on an idealised five-block grid with some general neighbourhoods and points of interest named. The dense grid of downtown routes is almost impossible to make sense of, but it’s fairly easy to follow them in the outer areas. One thing that’s obvious to see is just how much the bus routes still follow the old streetcar lines – there’s still even a “Bridge Transfer” route that runs between the major Willamette River bridges on the east side!

One final thing to note is Rose City Transit’s business address at 4100 SE 17th Avenue – the site of Portland’s main streetcar shops before Rose City Transit, and still in use as TriMet’s Center Street shops today.

Our final word: Nice to see a something from a neglected part of Portland’s transit history, though the map itself isn’t anything special. Some fun mid-century design flourishes with the little rose and bus icons, though!

Source: Multnomah County Library

The 2022 “Transit Maps” Gift Guide!

November 17, 2022
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Back after a long hiatus, here’s my comprehensive guide to transit map-related gifty goodness for the transportation lover in your life this holiday season!

Jump to the categories: Prints and Posters | Books | Other Gifts & Sites

Transit Map Prints and Posters

My favourite category, filled with creative original designs and beautiful replica vintage maps from around the world – mainly made by local small businesses that you help support with every purchase.

First off, the shameless promotional plug: visit the Transit Maps store for my own original designs and some beautifully-restored vintage maps. Look out for sales around Black Friday and in the lead up to Christmas for some great deals.
My original maps | Vintage maps

Andrew Smithers (or “Mr. Mappy” to his friends) has a great selection of his rail maps for sale on his Redbubble site, including some variants of his superbly detailed UK rail diagram.

European-based cartographer Mike Hall has a store of beautiful maps to explore; we’re particularly enamoured with his collection of original vintage-styled rail maps – just stunning!

Jug Cerovic’s impressive portfolio of “INAT” metro diagrams continues to grow each year, and you can buy many of them on his Redbubble store.

I’ve always loved Daniel Huffman’s series of transit maps of North American rivers – so much so that some of them are the only “guest artist” prints available in the Transit Maps store, but he’s made quite a few more than those! Check them out here in his storefront.

Michael Calcagno has been making transit maps for a long time – see his valuable contributions to nycsubway.org’s historical map collection – but he’s only started selling his creations relatively recently. His Etsy store is full of fantastic maps, including a lot of Vignelli-style diagrams of different cities.

Andrew “vanshnookenraggen” Lynch’s vanmaps.com has a wide selection of vividly graphical line maps for many US transit systems, and his highly detailed and well-researched track maps for New York, Boston and Chicago are definitely worth a close look.

Based in the UK, Traincrew Graphic Design offers a small but good selection of replica train carriage maps, as well as some vintage travel poster recreations.

Well known to readers of the blog, Michael Tyznik has some great transit map designs in his Etsy store, including his excellent fantasy/pop-culture mash-ups, a truly wonderful future Chicago map, and a a new series of colorful posters listing all the services at various Japanese rail stations.

NEW! Jake Berman’s FiftyThreeStudio Etsy shop has some great maps, including his ever-expanding “lost subways” series.

NEW! Based out of Melbourne, AdMaps has some great Australia-themed maps, including a series of line maps of Melbourne’s extensive tram network.

Books

The next best thing to transit maps themselves is BOOKS about transit maps. Here’s a selection of some must-reads, many of which are in my personal library. Links provided are affiliate links to Amazon; Transit Maps may receive a small commission from any purchase you might make after following such a link.

Mark Ovenden’s Transit Maps of the World is still the number one reference book for transit map aficionados, and with good reason. Packed to the gills with great maps and diagrams from around the world, it’s easy to get lost in this book for hours.

While you’re at it, check out some of Mark’s other transit and transportation-related books: Railway Maps of the World, Airline Maps (with Maxwell Roberts), and London Underground by Design.

I’m happy to see that the superb Mr. Beck’s Underground Map by the late Ken Garland is still available – the seminal work on the man and his obsession with perfecting “his” diagram. The only book you need on the subject.

Similarly, Vignelli Transit Maps by Peter Lloyd remains the definitive work on this chapter of mapping New York’s extensive transit system, while Paul Shaw’s Helvetica and the New York City Subway System delves deep into the contemporaneous story of typography and design in the system. While somewhat lighter in tone, Subway by John Morris also features material related to maps and design for the subway system.

If you missed the first print run, Boston in Transit – a comprehensive history by Ward Maps’ Steven Beaucher – is currently taking pre-orders for a March 2023 re-release. I ordered this one immediately and can’t wait for it to arrive! Even better, there’s an accompanying print store website – also called Boston in Transit – where you can get prints of many of the maps, posters and pamphlets that are reproduced in the book. Perfect!

Finally, for our New Zealand readers, Can’t Get There From Here: New Zealand Passenger Rail Since 1920 by Andre Brett features maps by Sam van der Weerden, whose work has been featured on Transit Maps previously.

Other Transit Related Gifts and Sites

Last but not least, a round up of other gift ideas that don’t neatly fit into the first two categories!

Chris Arvin’s Transit Supply website has a range of adorable pins, stickers, magnets and more. Definitely the cutest l’il trains you’ll ever see!

Want a real-time LED train tracker map on your desktop? Head over to traintrackr.io and check out their range. Warning: not cheap, but oh-so-geeky!

Official merch for San Francisco’s BART at railgoods.com, including some name plates from decommissioned trains (currently on a waiting list, but more plates are expected to be made available).

Official merch for the MBTA at mbtagifts.com, including a whole bunch of different MBTA maps.

NEW! More official merch! Toronto’s TTC has a great online store, including skateboards with maps on them!

And finally, we can’t forget the store for the wonderful New York Transit Museum!

That’s the list for 2022! Drop me a line if you think we forgot anything, or you’d like your product added. Let’s make this as comprehensive a list as we can!

Submission – Historical Map: Paris Métro + RER Map, c. 1984

October 13, 2022
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Submitted by Hayden, who says:

An interesting map of Paris’ Métro and RER network found in a restaurant in Montreal. The map’s designers seem to have made the most of a limited color palette by assigning the same color to groups of lines that do not intersect–lavender for 2, 8, and 3b, brown for 11 and 6, magenta for 12 and 7, etc. Unfortunately it seems they could not avoid breaking this rule at Strasbourg-St. Denis.

The best I can date this map is to between Dec. 1982 (Line 7 opens a new branch to Le Kremlin – Bicetre) and Feb. 1985 (this branch is extended).

Transit Maps says:

The first thing to note that this diagram – which I believe was designed as a postcard by C. Spandonide (see name at bottom left) – is very old and faded from being on this restaurant’s walls for goodness knows how long. Here’s another copy of it on Flickr that shows what it originally looked like. Note that it’s dated to 1984, which seems about right.

That said, Hayden’s comment about the limited colour palette still holds true. Despite being printed as four-colour process (which allows for almost any tint or shade desired), the Métro routes are shown in only six hues – yellow, red, green, blue, brown and purple. The yellow and blue used for the RER lines are ever-so-slightly different to those used for the Metro lines, but it’s still an interesting design decision. It’s even more interesting when this diagram is compared to a contemporaneous official RATP “Micro” diagram designed by Patrice Rouxel.

Look closely – you can see that there is the exact same breakdown of six colours assigned to the Metro lines on both maps, though some of the colours used are slightly different. So, red on the Spandonide diagram relates to pink on the Rouxel diagram and these colours are both assigned to lines 7 and 12. And so on: green is to light green for lines 4, 7b and 9; blue is to aqua for lines 5 and 13, etc. What we can infer from this is that this is simply how the lines were officially designated at this point in time. The Spandonide map has simply tweaked the hues slightly, perhaps to avoid copyright or licensing issues? The modern pastel route colours that we now know so well simply weren’t in use in 1984.

The unavoidable double-up of green at Strasbourg–St. Denis isn’t too bad as the lines cross at right angles, neatly avoiding any potential confusion. The diagram itself is a valiant effort to fit a complex network into a very small space, even using the black border to contain information about destinations off the edge of the diagram! All things considered, the labels are quite legible – and for once, all-caps is probably a good idea, as lower-case characters could perhaps be too hard to read at such a small point size.