We’ve feautured a transit map on the ceiling of a train before, so why not one on the floor as well? This map shows the suburban and regional train network surrounding Milan in Italy: Milan’s Metro system can be seen in between our two touristy friends. Reading the departures board in the background, I’d hazard a guess that this map is at the Garibaldi FS station. Awkward to use when the station is really busy, […]
Here’s an interesting new look at the London Underground from architect/designer/writer Jonny Fisher. It’s always fun when someone reinterprets something as well known as this: every designer approaches the same problem differently. For me, this map isn’t wholly successful, but it’s definitely thought-provoking. Have we been there? Yes. What we like: A bold attempt at a redesign of possibly the most well-known transit map of all. The “orbital” theme actually makes a lot of sense: […]
Via typeworship: This week London sees the 150th anniversary of the London Underground. To commemorate the occasion a stream locomotive used in the 19th century made a journey through the modern tunnels of the Metropolitan line. See more on the BBC It is also 100 years since its iconic typeface Johnston Sans was released as the the ‘Underground’ typeface. Dan Rhatigan, type director at Monotype and forthcoming interviewee of 8 Faces talks about Edward Johnston and the typeface here. The structured, based on a calligraphic nib held […]
Last year, the Moscow Metro introduced a completely new official map, which featured 30-degree angles. Put simply, it went down like a lead balloon (link in Russian), forcing the authorities to hastily organise a competition for another brand new design. However, some people decided they didn’t want to enter what’s essentially a no-spec design “contest” (there’s no payment for the winner, just thanks for a job well done) and set about designing their own map independently… […]
One last post for the Tube’s 150th birthday (it’s still the 9th of January here on the West Coast of the United States!). This is the oldest map I can find that shows what would later be known as the London Underground: an 1889 map of London’s railways – still some 26 years after the first part of the Metropolitan Line opened. Main line routes are shown in red and the newfangled “underground lines” are […]
The Metropolitan Line – first part of what was to become today’s London Underground – was opened on January 9, 1863 between Paddington and Farringdon Street via Kings Cross. See my other posts about the London Underground here. Source: google.co.uk home page
A nicely executed interactive map of total annual passenger entries into the Paris Metro system. “Entries” are simply defined as a ticket validation at the relevant station. Even in my static screenshot, the enormous quantities of people that enter the Metro at the main railway stations of Paris – the Gare du Nord, Saint-Lazare, Gare de Lyon and Montparnasse-Bienvenue – can be clearly seen. There’s a staggering 48 million entries each year at the Gare […]
A lovely little Edwardian piece of whimsy to welcome the weekend. Source: Annie Mole/Flickr
Still in situ at the West Street station. For me, this could be dated to the mid-1980s just by the illustration style alone: this scratchy detailed-but-slightly-cartoony style was all the rage then, and could be found in just about every clip art book of the period (back when you actually physically cut or “clipped” the art from a page!). Source: neate photos/Flickr
Illustrating a problem with strip maps that only show stations in the direction of travel: the second-last stop on the line has a stupid-looking map. Source: jbbartram/Instagram
