All posts tagged: highways

Project: International E-Road Network Diagram, 2020 Revision

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My Transit Maps

Finally! A comprehensive reworking and redrawing of one of my original projects – a diagram of the European International E-Road network. First drawn back in 2010, It’s a piece that’s always had a place in my heart, but I’ve always put off updating or reworking it over the years because I was just never quite sure how to bring anything new to the table. However, the recent successful revision of my Interstate Highways as Subway […]

Project: Interstate Highways as a Subway Diagram, 2020 Revision

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My Transit Maps, Prints Available

Ever since I first created it in 2009, my Interstates as Subway Map diagram has been one of my most popular and enduring designs. It’s consistently the best selling print in the Transit Maps store, and is something I’m incredibly proud of. However, the last major redesign of it was way back in 2011, and it’s definitely starting to show its age. At the time, I really didn’t think I’d still be maintaining and updating […]

Historical Map: A Progress Report on the Interstate Highway System, 1961

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Historical Maps

A great old map on a subject matter very dear to my heart – the Interstate Highway System. Produced in 1961 by the Caterpillar Tractor Company, who stood to gain a great deal in the construction work required to complete the network, it shows the proposed completed network in white, sections under construction with blue dashes, and – somewhat counter-intuitively – sections that are open to traffic in red. It’s immediately apparent how little of […]

Submission – West Coast Electric Highway Map

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Official Maps

Submitted by “Sounder Bruce”, who says: A quasi-transit map that shows electric vehicle charging stations in Washington and Oregon, centered around the Interstate 5 corridor. Transit Maps says: I really like the idea behind this map – a simplified road map much in the vein of many of my own mapping projects – but I feel like the execution lets the concept down a little.  Because of the stylised “transit map” format, the distances between […]

Project: Prototype U.S. Highways Shield (1926), Digital Recreation

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Miscellany

While doing research for my recent 1947 Interstate Highways map recreation, I stumbled across some scans of American Association of State Highway Officials (AASHO) road sign specifications dated from the 1920s. The very first page has a dimensioned drawing of the then brand new U.S. Highways shield that I find extremely interesting, as it doesn't quite match the the shield as it actually first appeared on real world signage in 1927.

Project: 1947 Map of Interstate Highways, Digital Recreation

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Historical Maps, Prints Available

Having found and digitally restored the fantastic 1926 map of the U.S. Highway system, I started to look around to see if I could find a similar map from the advent of the newer Interstate Highway network. However, all my usual sources came up with either nothing or only low resolution scans -- certainly nothing suitable for reproduction. So, what's a map-obsessed graphic designer to do in this situation? Why, redraw the whole thing faithfully from scratch in Adobe Illustrator, of course!

Project: 1926 Map of U.S. Highways, Digital Restoration

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Historical Maps, Prints Available

I came across this great 1926 map of the original Numbered U.S. Highway System via an article on CityLab. As I looked, I began to see that while the quality of the scan was good, and the content of the map was fascinating, the map itself was in a pretty sorry state -- so I decided to digitally restore it.

Review of my “Highways of the USA” Map by Kenneth Field

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My Transit Maps

My Highways of the USA map got a great write up today by Kenneth Field as part of his “MapCarte” series, where he writes about influential and beautiful maps: one map a day for a whole year. My map was No. 273 in the series, and is one of the very few schematic transit maps featured so far in the series (MapCarte No.1, way back at the beginning of the year was Beck’s original 1933 […]

Video: Printing the “Highways of the USA” Posters

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My Transit Maps, Prints Available

I’m very pleased to report that full production of the 44″ x 72″ Highways of the United States posters has begun. I’d like to thank everyone who has ordered so far for their patience as we got this process up and running. As you can see from the attached video, printing these beasts is quite the epic task: each poster takes about half an hour to run through the printer!