One last view of Philadelphia transit via these amazing diagrams from a 1972 book by Richard Saul Wurman from the MIT Press, “Man-Made Philadelphia”, now sadly out of print. As well as the train network, there’s also buses, highways and the growth of the city. Definitely loving the early 70s mimimalism design vibe to these. Looks like they were all produced specially for the book. Source: rjwhite/Flickr
A reblog by cranialdetritus of yesterday’s featured SEPTA map asked whether I had covered the SEPTA maps of the 1970s yet. I hadn’t, and tracking down an image proved a little tricky. The best I can find is a modern redrawing of the map from around 1979-1980 – credit to Lucius Kwok of Felt Tip Software for this work. It seems to be a quite accurate rendition, as the photo below – showing part of […]
After quite a few stellar maps, it’s time to show what I consider to be one of the least successful transit maps in current use in the US. To put it bluntly, SEPTA’s map is an unappealing, jumbled mess and certainly does not get me excited to use their system (a major plus point in my internal scoring system). Have we been there? No. What we like: Deserves credit for attempting to show so many […]
From Stonebrown Design comes this clever “subway” map of the famous Appalachian Trail, a hiking path that stretches some 2,200 miles from Georgia to Maine. Normally confined to detailed topographical maps, here it has been simplified to its very basic elements — a path, stops along the way and state lines. Clever work. Have we been there? No, but I have a friend who thru-hiked the whole trail and loved every second of it. What […]
New York is continuing its time in the spotlight here at Transit Maps with this brand new subway map by designer Alex Koplin. Looking for all the world like the love-child of the Vignelli diagram and the current MTA map, this is a seriously impressive piece of work that a lot of thought has clearly gone into. I know from experience how difficult it can be to reinvent something that people are familiar with, and […]
It’s NYC day here at Transit Maps! This impressive work by Pentagram’s Luke Hayman for Amsterdam-based interior design magazine Eigen Huis & Interieur combines their masthead ampersand with Massimo Vignelli’s subway map. Created for the magazine’s New York issue, the map’s “stations” represent New York design icons, people and institutions. Our rating: Awesome! Five stars!
The main arguments against Massimo Vignelli’s masterful 1972 diagrammatic map of the New York Subway are that New York never had a diagram before and hated it, and that it distorted the geography too much (the usual example given is the compression of Central Park into a square instead of its actual rectangle). However, this map – the immediate predecessor to the Vignelli map and used in various forms from around 1958 to 1972 – […]
Another aerial-style view of a transit system – this time of Boston’s MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority: now known as the “T”) subway system. The attention to detail is wonderful, with each station and tunnel lovingly and accurately rendered. Note how the routes have different colours to the current map: the current colours come from a system-wide rebranding in the 1960s. Have we been there? Yes, and I used the “T” extensively while there. What we […]
Nice supplementary wayfinding signage at New York’s Union Square Station. YOU ARE HERE. Source: Nick Sherman/Flickr
Related to the parabolic map of the Moscow Metro, here’s a unique take on the Washington, DC Metro – as a spiral. A visually compelling image, and great at showing links between routes, but not actually that useful as a map. Have we been there? No. What we like: Amazingly creative way of re-imagining the system. Looks fantastic! Shows links between routes at transfer stations very effectively. What we don’t like: Absolute lack of geography […]
