Having looked at a highly-successful isometric-style diagram yesterday, here’s one that’s nowhere near as accomplished despite sharing many of the same design elements.

A major factor is that Wales has a a distinctive and recognisable shape that aids in locating major towns, while the Grand Est region is very indistinct and blobby. The simplified shape used on the diagram isn’t actually much like the real world, so it’s not that useful for locating places. Highlighting major destinations like Strasbourg, Metz, Nancy and Mulhouse would help a lot, as they’re somewhat lost in a sea of identical labels. Contrast and emphasis to guide the eye to important information is a huge part of transit map design!

I also have major issues with the way that TGV services are shown. Firstly, the shade of light blue used makes them look like rivers instead of high-speed rail. Then, they have to bounce up and down across the diagram to line up with their stations, which seems an odd way to depict your fastest services – the straighter these route lines are shown, the better, in my opinion. Finally, because the route lines are really indicating the extent of the LGV Est high-speed rail lines and not the actual TGV services that run on those lines, it looks like these services end at Vendenheim and Petit-Croix instead of their actual final destinations. Ultimately, the diagram is meant to be focussing on TER services within the region, so the TGV lines should be subsidiary information, but this presentation still rubs me the wrong way.

My biggest problem with the diagram is that there doesn’t really seem to be much of an underlying grid holding it all together… as much as possible, all the vertical lines should adhere to a multiples of a constant vertical grid to give some rhythm and flow, but they just seem to be placed anywhere. The uneven placement of station dots throughout the diagram shows that there’s some room to move to get those lines spaced out a bit better, but that level of care hasn’t been taken.

Our final word: A shapeless, formless blob in need of a stronger grid and better information hierarchy. Unmemorable.

Source: SNCF TER website