Massimo Vignelli, 1972 New York City Subway Map © MTA New York City Transit.

This article is pretty long and probably hard to get through if you’re not the perfect combo of history buff and design nerd, but it outlines one man’s journey to create the perfect subway map. This sort-of epic tale is the perfect example of the awesome and complex power design has over our lives, and is particularly topical, considering that the MTA did just recently alter the New York City Subway map. Though the new design is definitely an upgrade, I still like the 1958 George Salomon and the 1972 Massimo Vignelli maps best, for their simplicity and beauty. In fact, a great piece in New York Mag‘s fall 2007 Design issue covered him and his wife about their map and other accomplishments. Of course, NYMag said it best: “The visual glory of the Vignelli map is its abstract simplicity: All lines bend at 45 or 90 degrees only. Every line has a color. Every stop is designated with a black dot, the corresponding negative of the colored circular signs on the actual platform.”
On the subject of maps, one of my favorite books is You Are Here: Personal Geographies and Other Maps of the Imagination by Katherine Harmon. It has a couple old-school maps of the human heart that are dually comical and beautiful, like this one:

Geographical Guide to a Woman's Heart Emphasizing Points of Interest to the Romantic Traveler, McCall's January 1960

Tags: design, maps