You just can’t beat 1930s London Underground posters – a superb mix of art, design and branding. This one’s a real beauty! Of interest is that it playfully echoes the look of Beck’s Tube Diagram, then only two years old. Design by O’Keeffe. Source: Mikey Ashworth/Flickr
Submitted by Dmitry, who says: It all started when in Moscow was initiated a public tender for creation of a new, modern metro map. I was really excited and made an imaginary metro map for Florence (IRL there’s no metro). But then I thought that I can do something really useful. A map for a real transport system that would be helpful, beautiful and clean. I have completely redesigned the Milan Metro Map. I have […]
Okay, I couldn’t help myself: I just had to redraw this thing to illustrate all the points I talked about earlier – correcting the obvious errors I discovered in my technical review, and also addressing the general thoughts of my initial post. So here it is: not a redesign, but a reworking of the design concept while working within the established principles of the official map. If you’re just starting out with designing transit maps, […]
It seems that the draft Sydney Trains map that I posted about the other day is the real thing: printed timetables featuring it have been seen and scanned. So, I started looking at it again in order to write a proper review, when I started to notice a lot of little technical things that – as a designer – I found jarring and inconsistent. I opened the PDF file in Adobe Illustrator and began to […]
Transport in Paris these days is so inextricably linked to the image of the ubiquitous Metro, that it’s very easy to forget that it once had an extensive network of trams spreading far out into the suburbs. Fancy catching a tram from the Louvre to all the way to Versailles along the banks of the Seine? You could back in 1921, when this gorgeous map was produced. At this time, all the many competing tram and […]
This material was sent to me via email by Dennis McClendon, who runs Chicago CartoGraphics, a design firm in the Windy City that specialises in maps and information graphics. His email – which outlines his role in the development of the Chicago “L” map as used in the CTA system map brochure (the first link on this page) – is so fascinating that I’m basically reproducing it in its entirety below. In effect, Dennis is Transit […]
One of the loveliest reinventions of the London Tube Map I’ve seen so far – simply red thread stitched onto rice paper. It’s bigger than it looks: 100cm wide by 30cm deep, so it would certainly look impressive on a wall! Source: Susan’s website
Very shiny representation of the inner part of Sydney’s rail network. Design-wise, it doesn’t stray too far from the look of the official map (Sept. 2012, 3.5 stars), although I’m not quite sure why the route line that represents the peak-only East Hills services heading up through Sydenham suddenly turns northwards before it reaches Redfern. The labels for Circular Quay and St. James stations could also be much better aligned with their respective ticks. Technically, there should […]
Here’s a fun little piece sent my way by Montreal-based designer Corey Landels: the Métro de Montréal redesigned in the style of the iconic London Underground map. While it’s definitely a fun little homage, I do feel that Corey could have pushed a little harder to match the designs more closely and demonstrate a better understanding of the “Beckian” principles at play behind the design of the Tube map (in short, absolute simplification of route […]
Circular transit diagrams are certainly all the rage at the moment. I’ve reviewed two different takes on London here and here, and Maxwell Roberts’ circular New York diagram is generating a lot of internet buzz at the moment. That’s not to say that it’s a completely new and original concept, however. Harry Beck tried his hand at a circular Underground diagram in 1964, and Berlin’s Ringbahn was abstracted into a perfect circle as far back […]
