As you may know, the Epson Stylus Pro 9900 that I use to print maps for the Transit Maps store has broken down. And not in a little way: the belt that drives the print head has snapped, and the print head itself finally needs to be replaced. After getting some estimates on repairs, I’ve decided that it actually makes more sense to get an entirely new unit, rather than refurbishing a printer that’s already […]
Now that I’ve acquired my own large format inkjet printer, I’m printing and fulfilling all orders from my print store myself. This means it’s much easier for me to produce many of my maps in larger, made-to-order sizes for those who want them. All of my original maps are created in Adobe Illustrator, so they can scale up to any size as required. In addition, many of my restored vintage maps have excellent image resolution […]
Question: Hi Cameron, I’m wrapping up a transit map project that I’ll likely print professionally. I was all set to send the printer a PDF until I happened to catch one of your tweets that mentioned using a high-resolution JPEG instead. I’m wondering if you could share your recommended practices for exporting from Illustrator to print-ready JPEG in terms of resolution, color profiles, and the like. The last thing any of us wants is to […]
Here’s a fantastic old map of the first segment of Hong Kong’s now extensive rapid transit system. The original source dates the map to 1978, which seems reasonable to me – the route was well under construction at that time, with the segment from Kwun Tong to Shek Kip Mei opening in October 1979. The route was extended to Tim Sha Tsui in December of that year, and the initial section was completed in February […]
Submitted by Taylosaurus, who says: I saw the last post about Portland’s new TriMet maps and the stations and I knew I’d seen a map without that weird disappearing Red Line/streetcar thing so I made sure to take a picture on my way home. This map is on the ticket vending machines. I’m not sure if it’s on all of them but it’s at least on the ones at the Rose Quarter and at SE […]
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!
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 […]
Many thanks to Matt Johnson for telling me about this amazing photoset on Flickr that details the process involved in printing the new Rush+ station maps for Washington, DC’s Metro system. Click through to see the whole set! Even as an experienced graphic designer, I was amazed to see that the maps are screen printed — each colour on the map is printed one after the other, each using a separate screen with its own […]
