Transit Maps: avant garde

All posts tagged: avant garde

Historical Map: San Diego “Park Line” Bus Route Map, June 1978

October 1, 2013

Filed Under:
Historical Maps

Tags:

1978, avant garde, bus, bus map, California, cartography, San Diego, SDMTS, USA

Looks like tightly-spaced Avant Garde was totally in vogue in 1978 (see also this Portland, Oregon bus map). This is a charmingly naive little map, complete with scratchy pen and ink drawings of points of interest, a lovely ornate north pointer (another 1970s typeface with some great swashes!) and an adorable little green hand pointing at the downtown inset. It even clearly shows all relevant street names and interchanges with other routes. What’s not to […]

Historical Map: TriMet Bus System Map, Portland, Oregon, 1978

September 27, 2013

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Filed Under:
Historical Maps

Tags:

1978, avant garde, bus, bus map, icons, Oregon, Portland, TriMet, USA

Not much use for route planning: this map was really made just to show how the routes that ran into the city centre were grouped into geographic regions and denoted by a colour and an icon. While stops along the transit mall are now marked with boring old letters, back then these cheery and oh-so-1970s symbols guided you to the bus stop you needed. Also very 1970s: the tightly-kerned Avant Garde typeface. Source: TriMet’s “How […]

Transit Map Typefaces: Geometric Sans (Part 2 of 4)

March 6, 2013

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Filed Under:
Tutorials

Tags:

avant garde, Futura, Geometric 415, graphic design, typography

Geometric sans serif typefaces – as their name suggests – are based on geometrical shapes, especially circles for their “o”. Many of these typefaces have their roots in the 1920s and 1930s, and often reflect the Art Deco aesthetic of that period. Of the three sans serif categories, this is my least favourite for use on transit maps. Their rigid reliance on geometry makes them a little inflexible in use, and because many of the […]