All posts tagged: New York Subway

Book Review: “Vignelli Transit Maps”, Peter B. Lloyd with Mark Ovenden

April 1, 2013
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As a graphic designer with a keen interest in transit maps and a fairly thorough knowledge of their history and usage, I thought I had a decent understanding of Massimo Vignelli’s diagrammatic version of the New York Subway map, which was used from 1972 to 1979. This outstanding book has proved me almost completely and utterly wrong. So much of what we think we know about the Vignelli map is simply hearsay and legend, repeated […]

Photo: NY Subway Map and Tokens, 1990

March 15, 2013
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Historical Maps
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Great little slice of history here. The photographer on Flickr seems to recall the cost of a token as being 60 cents at the time; Wikipedia prices it at $1.15. As a graphic designer, all I can see is the terrible registration in the (cheap) printing – look at the huge yellow halo bleeding out to the right of the green and red printed areas. (In four-colour printing, green is made from combining cyan and […]

Photo: Vignelli NYC Subway Map – Street Grid

March 1, 2013
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Miscellany
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An image from Massimo Vignelli’s recent talk at the New York Transit Museum about the development of his (in)famous diagram. The chance to hear Vignelli talk about his work really makes me wish that I lived in New York. Anyway, I find this image particularly interesting because it shows the underlying grid of streets and avenues that was used to place the route lines accurately. Although the map we see here appears to be the […]

New York by Jenni Sparks

December 11, 2012
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Illustrations
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Absolutely wonderful hand-drawn map of NYC by illustrator Jenni Sparks, second only to Paula Scher’s masterpieces.  (↬ kottke) This is so gorgeous. Says a lot about the subway’s importance and place in New York’s collective psyche that it’s featured so prominently in the design, cutting vibrant coloured slashes across the landscape. Click through to Jenni’s site to see more of this stunning work.

Timecowboy: It’s Been a Year…

November 27, 2012
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Popular Culture
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timecowboy: I’ve tried making comics about my time in New York in the past but I couldn’t articulate the feelings. It’s a strange feeling missing a city, especially when it’s not your home town but I think most people understand the feeling of wanting to belong or feeling like they don’t. Anyways these have been some words.  A nicely poignant little web comic, cleverly using the New York subway map as part of the narrative.