Back in 2019, Ken showcased an experimental alternative Tube Map based on a diamond motif (read the Transit Maps review here) that had mixed reactions from the community. He went away and absorbed that feedback, and – like a glutton for punishment – he’s back with not one, but two new maps. Like many people, Ken believes the current Tube Map is nearly at the end of its useful life and wants to explore new […]
Submitted by Chinmay Kunkikar, who simply asks for a review of this map (which is probably long overdue – Cam). Transit Maps says: While many modern transit maps bear some sort of debt to Harry Beck’s pioneering London Underground diagram, most of them don’t wear their influences quite as openly as the Delhi Metro map. Not content with using almost identical iconography, it even uses Johnston Sans for its English language labels. However, it’s certainly […]
Submitted by Kenneth, who says: Hi Cameron, Well, I finally went and made a map after all the years berating other maps. So I throw it to you for amusement/ridicule, etc. I’m deliberately not going to explain my design decisions in detail because I think it best to get feedback without colouring your judgement. I’ll be writing a blog on my thinking in the next week or two but I wanted to simplify and de-clutter […]
For Johnston Sans’ 100th birthday, TfL has commissioned Monotype to redraw the typeface, bringing the design back closer to its original roots in many respects. Going forward, it will be this cut that will be used on all new TfL signage, maps and collateral. The redraw also introduces two new weights – Thin and Hairline – that I remain unconvinced by. I suspect they’ve been added for online usage and advertising purposes, but they just […]
By the mid-1930s, the London Underground’s Metropolitan line was suffering from congestion caused by the limited capacity of its tracks between Baker Street and Finchley Road stations. To relieve this pressure, a tunnel was constructed between the Bakerloo line’s platforms at Baker Street and Finchley Road and three Metropolitan line stations (Lord’s, Marlborough Road and Swiss Cottage) were replaced with two new Bakerloo stations (St. John’s Wood and Swiss Cottage). The Bakerloo line took over […]
Question: Several years ago I was in Christchurch, New Zealand, and a friend had a tea towel with a (fictitious) underground transit map of the city, in the style of the London Underground. I’ve searched long and hard for it, or its creators, to no avail. The best I turned up were a few pictures, which I collected on a Pinterest board. Have you encountered it, or ones like it? Answer: I hadn’t actually seen […]
Question: What’s your opinion of Pablo Impallari’s Cabin font? The first time I saw it it screamed “transit map” at me, and I’m curious to know what you think. Answer: Seeing as the author’s own description of the typeface says this… The Cabin Font is a humanist sans inspired by Edward Johnston’s and Eric Gill’s typefaces… … I think that it would probably qualify as a fine wayfinding/transit map typeface just by pedigree alone. More Johnston […]
The third – and most diverse – category of sans serif typefaces is known as humanist sans. Compared to the grotesque and geometric categories, humanist sans typefaces almost calligraphic, with a natural variation in line weight and open characters that enhance legibility. With less “rules” to their construction, there’s a much greater variety of letter forms – meaning it’s easier to find a typeface that projects its own unique personality upon your map, which can […]
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 […]
