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 […]
Sent my way by Roy himself are these two marvellous diagrams of bus routes in Nottingham, England. The first is from April 1975 and shows the two free downtown circulator bus routes, which certainly seemed to take quite the torturous route through some narrow old streets. The second map is from July 1979, and shows the entire bus network in diagrammatic form. The routes are colour-coded based on their direction from the city centre, not […]
Blue Crow Media is an independent publisher of beautifully designed city guide maps on many subjects – you may be familiar with their “Brutalist Architecture” series – and this new map is the first in a planned series of maps about public transportation networks around the world. Edited by Mark Ovenden (of Transit Maps of the World fame) with some lovely photos by Will Scott, the map promises to be an authoritative guide to the design and architecture […]
Here’s an absolute gem, a surprisingly modern-looking diagram of trolleybus and tram routes in post-war London. Drawn by cartographer Fred J.H. Elston, the map employs 30-degree angles and radically straightened roads to great effect. All roads are clearly labelled, as are the different neighbourhoods of London, so orientation isn’t a problem. I also really like the way all the bridges are shown crossing the Thames: another effective orientation method. Underground and main line stations are […]
This newspaper ad from 1982 predates all those trendy “coffee shops/restaurants/bars/etc. nearest every subway/metro/train station in [insert city]” graphics that are pretty much everywhere these days by some 35 years. Riffing off the the Tyne & Wear Metro Map of the day, the map shows all the Newcastle Inns’ pubs near stations with their star logo, while also featuring some truly dreadful advertising copy puns. Source: SkyscraperCity forums
Submitted by David, who says: This all started about 17 years ago as an exercise to teach myself to use Macromedia Freehand. The years passed, Freehand became Adobe Illustrator, and I continued to work on it. The original Idea was to create an A4 sized map to carry around in my pocket, but it quickly became apparent that to contain the desired detail and remain legible it would have to be printed at A1 or […]
Not a “traditional” transit map, but it does show an important transportation network in a simplified strip map form, so that’s good enough for me! This absolutely gorgeous two-colour map straightens out all the kinks in the eponymous canal, presenting it as a dead straight line from one end to the other. The variable scale is indicated by the mile markers on either side of the map: the less interesting parts of the canal get […]
Submitted by Ray, who says: Here’s Best Impressions’ new tourist bus map for encouraging people to get out and about to explore Yorkshire using the Transdev bus network. The map is intended to highlight the richness of attractions and destinations in a pictorial style. It’s included in our our “Amazing Days in Yorkshire” leaflet, just released. Transit Maps says: While I don’t want to get in the habit of acting as a PR agent for […]
Passers-by looking at a pre-H.C. Beck Underground map outside Strand station in 1937. At a glance, it looks like the Fred Stingemore map, but expanded to show the whole system (the pocket card only showed central London). Parkland also seems to have been added – the large dark blotches dotted all around the map. Source: Londonist.com
QDo you know any official London Underground map that shows the Metropolitan Line/stations beyond Aylesbury (i.e. the Brill and Verney Junction branches) and not just mentions them in a ‘To’ box? ANo, I haven’t ever seen a map with “Underground” branding that shows the entire network and the Metropolitan Railway’s fullest extent out to the far reaches of Brill and Verney Junction, some 40-odd miles from London. The closest I can find is a Metropolitan Railway […]
