Submitted by Frederico, who says:

This is the network diagram of the first company identity ever created for the São Paulo metro by Brazillian design agency Cauduro Martino, back in the late 1960s, when the network was still being conceived – you can see several stations and line branches that didn’t succeed. Alongside with the map, they also delivered to the metro a big project of visual communications involving the logo – which is still used today – station signage and information guidelines. However, in 1971, the São Paulo metro company decided to ditch the project and switch firms to Unimark, where the present-day identity was (for the most part) created.

Although I personally like the São Paulo metro identity (except for the map, which I find very confusing), this one feels so much more special and unique. It’s a shame that it never could happen. 

I found both the map and its history in a master’s degree thesis by Olivia Chiavareto (PDF) on the metro’s signage design. Portuguese speakers should check it out, it’s very interesting – the map is on page 64.

Transit Maps says:

This is a great find, Frederico – a look at what might have been if Cauduro Martino had been allowed to continue their work, which I believe began in 1967.

This is a pleasingly modernist diagram, with a distinctive diamond shape – one that echoes the Metro’s logo almost exactly – serving as the main design focus… the “visual hook” that I so often encourage in diagram design. Interestingly, it would seem that even though this map was discarded, part of it still lives on through the Metro’s logo, which is rather neat. And of course, it’s always interesting to look at early conceptual renditions of networks and compare them to the current versions some 50 years later! (Last reviewed in 2012, though the current version is stylistically very similar.)