All posts tagged: Europe

Historical Map: Trolleybuses of Tallinn, Estonia, c. 2000–2012

October 28, 2017
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A stylish little diagram of trolleybus routes in the Estonian capital. It’s from later than 2000, when Line 8 was abandoned, but also from before December 2012, when Line 2 was replaced by regular buses. Today, only lines 1, 3, 4, 5 and 9 remain. Can anyone date this even more precisely? Stylistically, the diagram reminds me a lot of these 1990 diagrams of trams and trolleybuses from Kaliningrad, with some interesting abstract shapes and […]

Historical Map: Trolleybus and Tram Routes of London, 1947

October 28, 2017
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Here’s an absolute gem, a surprisingly modern-looking diagram of trolleybus and tram routes in post-war London. Drawn by cartographer Fred J.H. Elston, the map employs 30-degree angles and radically straightened roads to great effect. All roads are clearly labelled, as are the different neighbourhoods of London, so orientation isn’t a problem. I also really like the way all the bridges are shown crossing the Thames: another effective orientation method. Underground and main line stations are […]

Unofficial Future Map: Amsterdam Metro “Time” Diagram by Alain Lemaire

October 24, 2017
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Here’s a really nicely thematic diagram of the future 2019 Amsterdam Metro, once the 52-Noord Zuid opens and the 51 gets demoted to “express tram” south of Zuid station and wil be routed around the loop to Isolatorweg instead. This is hardly the first circular Amsterdam map I’ve featured on Transit Maps (see this from way back in 2012), but I do really like the way Alain has thematically tied the whole thing together with […]

Historical Map: Rotterdam Transit Map, c. 1974 by Tel Design

October 16, 2017
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Here’s another fantastic old transit diagram taken from the pages of the 1974 Graphis Diagrams annual (see also this concept Helsinki Metro map). This minimalist diagram of Rotterdam’s transit was designed by the firm Tel Design, who were also responsible for the corporate identity of Nederlandse Spoorwegen (NS or Dutch Railways) in the 1960s. The creative director, Gert Dumbar, formed his own design studio in 1977 and continued to do work for NS through the […]

Historical Map: Concept for Helsinki Metro Diagram, c. 1974

September 27, 2017
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Here’s something interesting – an early concept diagram for the Helsinki Metro that shows two lines instead of the eventual one (plus branch). It appears in the 1974 edition of Graphis Diagrams, a collection of the best informational design from around the world at the time (generally within the last year).  Stylistically, it’s almost identical to the diagram that was actually used when the Metro finally opened in 1982… it just has a whole extra […]

Historical Map: Newcastle Inns “Metro Map” Ad, 1982

September 3, 2017
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This newspaper ad from 1982 predates all those trendy “coffee shops/restaurants/bars/etc. nearest every subway/metro/train station in [insert city]” graphics that are pretty much everywhere these days by some 35 years. Riffing off the the Tyne & Wear Metro Map of the day, the map shows all the Newcastle Inns’ pubs near stations with their star logo, while also featuring some truly dreadful advertising copy puns. Source: SkyscraperCity forums

Submission – Unofficial Map: Isometric Rail Map of Nuremberg, Germany by Stevan Wurm

August 30, 2017
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Submitted by Stevan, who says: I’d love to get an opinion from you about my concept for Nuremberg’s metro region transit map. I’m not huge fan of official Nuremberg-Fuerth map [which hasn’t changed substantially since I reviewed it back in May 2012 – Cam] so I decided to give a try and redesign the map. In past I’ve tried several times to create transit maps for few cities but this one is the first one I could […]

Submission – Official Map: Baku Metro, Azerbaijan by Ramin Həsənəlizadə

August 23, 2017
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I must admit that when Ramin sent me a link to his Behance project page for this map a while ago, I assumed it was a (very accomplished) unofficial project. It was only when I followed the website link at the bottom of the sheet that I realised that this was actually the new official map for the Baku Metro.  It’s definitely a huge improvement over the previous lacklustre version (second image above) and looks […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: London’s Rail Services by David Milne

August 2, 2017
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Submitted by David, who says: This all started about 17 years ago as an exercise to teach myself to use Macromedia Freehand. The years passed, Freehand became Adobe Illustrator, and I continued to work on it. The original Idea was to create an A4 sized map to carry around in my pocket, but it quickly became apparent that to contain the desired detail and remain legible it would have to be printed at A1 or […]

Submission – Unofficial Map: Minsk Metro, Belarus by Ilya Birman, Ivan Zviahin and Konstantin Evstratenko

August 2, 2017
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If you ever do a Google image search for the map of the Minsk Metro, you’ll quickly find out that there are a lot of dreary, hackneyed and downright terrible versions of it – both official and unofficial. Despite the simplicity of its X-shaped two-line system (with a third in the works), it just doesn’t seem to inspire good design work. Until now.  Ilya Birman – whom Transit Maps has featured a number of times […]