Here’s a small but important tip when it comes to working with station labels in Adobe Illustrator. Most of the time, it’s easier to use what Illustrator calls point type when setting labels – that is, you click once with the Type Tool and then type your text, rather than dragging out a text frame with the tool. It looks neater in wireframe view and is generally less cumbersome to work with. However, you need […]
Let me preface this tutorial by saying that — without a shadow of a doubt — this is my number one most favourite, time-saving, map-making Adobe Illustrator trick ever. When making transit maps, it’s preferable — for both aesthetics and readability — to not have any labels overlay a route line or other elements. However, sometimes it’s simply unavoidable, as in the detail of my Boston MBTA map redesign at the top of the image above […]
This little tip is thanks to RG, who left a comment on the site asking: “Can you comment on how you make the 2pt of white space between lines show when you have lines cross over each other?” On most transit maps, route lines will cross over each other at various points. Most of the time, an interchange station exists at that point and the symbol for that covers up the lines as they cross. […]
I got an request from an anon last week which asked: “Hey! Could you do a video tutorial on how to bypass Illustrator’s annoying round corners effect in case of 45 degrees? It would be a lifesaver!” Now, while you’re not going to get a video tut out of me – I don’t have the resources, time or know-how to produce one of those – I can and will share my battle-tested personal approach to […]
BART’s “Official Unofficial” Map now on the Wikimedia Commons For those Inkscape users, David Sindel has let me know that he’s converted BART’s Adobe Illustrator file to .svg and has uploaded the file to Wikimedia. Although the PNG preview looks kind of weird, David assures me that the actual .svg is fine.
I use Adobe Illustrator exclusively when working on my maps. As a graphic designer, it’s the tool that I’m most used to and that’s most suited to the task at hand. Any vector-based illustration application would be fine, though. Lots of people who want to get into map making without the cost of an Adobe app swear by Inkscape, although I’ve never used it personally. As for tutorials, I’ve pretty much learned all I know […]
Today is the end of an era in Portland, Oregon. TriMet, under budgetary stress, has done away with the much-loved Free Rail Zone, which allowed free travel by light rail and streetcar within the “Fareless Square” area of downtown Portland and the Lloyd Center. Not too long ago, Fareless Square also applied to buses in the same area, so the writing’s been on the wall for a while. At the same time, TriMet has also […]
Back in January, I posted a review of the current Boston MBTA transit map on the blog – and I had some harsh words for it (I believe the phrase “hot mess” occurs in the text). Always one to back my words up with actions, I’ve been quietly working on my own revised version that I feel improves the map in quite a few areas. I’ve also created a few different versions to illustrate some […]
What’s that, Green Line? Yes, I do think you look wonderful when all your stations are shown! A work in progress screen shot of my Boston MBTA “T” map redesign. And this isn’t even the coolest part. Stay tuned!
In my earlier post about drawing a transit map, I made mention of the fact that Adobe Illustrator’s “Round Corners” effect doesn’t work very well with multiple curves around a corner, such as parallel route lines changing direction together on a transit map. This part of my post elicited a very interesting comment from Chris Helenius in Finland that there are ways to get matching curves around a corner when using the Round Corners effect. […]
