On the ArcGIS Blog, a guide by Stephanie Oliver to designing maps that are more accessible to readers with colour blindness. (This is very specifically an ArcGIS Pro guide, down to the palette menus.)
Tag: map design
Book Roundup: December 2024
A lack of time and energy have conspired to prevent me from serving up a gift guide this year, but I can point you to a few links related to books that have come out this year.
First up, I have in my hands a review copy of the seventh volume of the Atlas of Design. It is the usual collection of marvellous cartography from familiar and unfamiliar mapmakers, some of which quite unexpected, and I hope to have more to say about it shortly. It made its debut at the NACIS annual meeting in October and is available to purchase from this page. See my review of the sixth volume.
Matthew Edney’s list of map history books published or seen in 2024 is now live; he’s been posting such a list each year since 2017 (previously).
40 Maps, 47 Borders, 50 Transit Maps
Alaistair Bonnett’s latest, 40 Maps That Will Change How You See the World came out in September from Ivy Press. Geographical magazine published an interview with him in October. I’ve reviewed two of Bonnett’s books here before—Off the Map (Unruly Places) and The Age of Islands (Elsewhere)—which were more about geographical curiosities than maps per se. Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop
To promote A History of the World in 47 Borders (Wildfire, April)—published in the U.S. as A Brief History of the World in 47 Borders (The Experiment, October)—Jonn Elledge has posted a list of the 47 facts about the 47 borders that are the focus of the book’s 47 chapters. Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop
Mark Ovenden’s latest, Iconic Transit Maps (Prestel, 2024) is a look at transit map design via fifty examples around the world. Cameron Booth reviews it on his Transit Maps blog. Way back in 2008, I reviewed the first edition of his Transit Maps of the World. Amazon (Canada, UK) | Bookshop
Related: Map Books of 2024.
Review: Atlas of Design, Vol. 6
Late last year I received, as a review copy, the sixth volume of the Atlas of Design. Things being what they are around here, there has been somewhat of a gap between receiving it, reading it, and saying something about it. But it’s worth saying something about that volume now, and the Atlas of Design in general, for at least one small reason I’ll get to in a moment.
I’ve mentioned the Atlas of Design series before, but it’s worth introducing it properly. Published every two years since 2012 by the North American Cartographic Information Society, the Atlas of Design is powered by volunteer editors and contributor submissions. Nobody’s getting paid for working on or appearing in these volumes—though it must be said that many of these maps are commercial ventures (posters available for sale at the mapper’s website) or works for hire (National Geographic and the Washington Post are represented in volume six), so the mapmakers aren’t doing this just for the exposure.
More on the New York Subway Map Debate
This roundtable discussion about The New York Subway Map Debate, a book about the April 1978 Cooper Union debate over the design of the New York subway map (previously) and related subjects, featuring John Tauranac himself (who participated in the 1978 debate), alerted me to the fact that an audio recording of that debate is available online. (A discussion about a book about a debate: this all feels a bit recursive.) [Kenneth Field]
New York’s MTA Is Testing a New Subway Map
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority is experimenting with new network maps that adopt a diagrammatic design that harkens back to Massimo Vignelli’s 1972 design, or (frankly) to designs used by most other transit systems. The new maps appear in nine subway stations side-by-side with geographically accurate maps of the MTA system, and embed QR codes so riders can submit feedback. If the maps are positively received, they could replace the MTA’s current network map—but New York being New York, and New York’s map wars being what they’ve been for the past fifty years or so, it’s anyone’s guess how this will shake out. More at Gizmodo.
The New York Subway Map Debate
Back in 1978, Massimo Vignelli and John Tauranac debated the future of New York’s subway map. That debate—which in many ways never quite ended—is now the subject of a book coming out later this month. Edited by Gary Hustwit, The New York Subway Map Debate includes a full transcript of the debate and subsequent discussion (thanks to the discovery of a lost audio recording), plus contemporary photos and new interviews. Paperback available for $40 via the link.
Vintage Toronto
It looks like every map style is doomed to be replicated in ArcGIS Pro. See, for example, Warren Davidson’s Vintage Road Atlas: which renders Toronto and its surrounding area in the style of a 1950s tourist map. It’s double-sided and is designed to be folded (which is to say that there are some upside-down bits). The ArcGIS Pro style—which is called Are We There Yet? and can be downloaded here—even simulates the creases and weathering of an old folded map, though it does so a little too regularly if you look closely. (Also there are some inconsistencies in road lines and highway markers: the map is prisoner of its data.)
Previously: Mapping with Style; Maps Middle-earth Style: By Hand and by ArcGIS.
Mapping with Style
John M. Nelson’s ArcGIS style emulating the maps of Middle-earth is only one of several styles he’s been working on recently. He’s also created other ArcGIS styles emulating classic cartographic designs, including 19th-century physical geography diagrams, Eduard Imhof’s topographic maps, and hachures. Five of these styles, including the Tolkien style, have been collected in a short PDF booklet from Esri, Mapping with Style, Vol. 1, the title of which all but promises at least one sequel.
Previously: Maps Middle-earth Style: By Hand and by ArcGIS.
New Ottawa Transit Map Goes Diagrammatic
Last week OC Transpo, the City of Ottawa’s transit service, unveiled a new network map (PDF) that shows the transit routes that will be in effect after the new LRT opens, which is (at the moment) scheduled to take place in November. From a cartographic perspective, what’s interesting is that OC Transpo’s new map adopts a diagrammatic, non-geographical design after years of their maps simply overlaying transit lines over a city map (see, for example, the latest, pre-LRT transit map, PDF). The approach allows the map to enlarge the more densely served core and inner suburbs and shrink the larger, but less service-dense outer suburbs—which is exactly what diagrammatic transit maps of sprawling cities are good for.
Vignelli in D.C.
In the 1970s, Vignelli Associates—Massimo and Lella Vignelli—made a bid to design the maps for the Washington Metro. That gig went to Lance Wyman. The Vignelli Archives recently unearthed some presentation boards and design sketches from their bid; CityLab has more details. Cameron Booth notes that these are hardly new discoveries, as they’d appeared recently in Peter Lloyd and Mark Ovenden’s Vignelli Transit Maps, which came out in 2012.
Booth has recreated a digital version of one of Vignelli’s map sketches—a hexagonal grid concept that appeared in Vignelli Transit Maps—as well as a full, modern system diagram in the same style; he’s selling the latter as a poster.
Daniel Huffman’s “Root-and-Branch” Airline Route Map
Daniel Huffman had the opportunity to redesign an airline’s route map for their in-flight magazine. He came up with the above design, which in the end the client decided against, but he talks about how he came up with it in this blog post. He calls it a cartogram, because he’s expanding or shrinking the continents to account for where the routes are clustered (which I guess kind of counts); and he’s adopted what he calls a “root-and-branch” style to avoid the cluttering and overlapping of multiple lines. It’s a fascinating read, particularly if you like learning about the mapmaking process.
Before Beck: The Prior Art of Diagrammatic Transit Maps
Harry Beck may have created the iconic Tube map, which substituted a schematic diagram of the network for a geographically accurate map, but he didn’t invent the diagrammatic transit map. Alberto Cairo points to a number of pieces that explore examples of diagrammatic maps that were contemporaneous with or earlier than Beck’s work: Asaf Degani’s article in Ergonomics in Design points to the influence of designer F. H. Stingemore (see p. 12); Douglas Rose’s online essay comparing Beck with George Dow; and there’s a 2005 book by Andrew Dow (George’s son), Telling the Passenger Where to Get Off: George Dow and the Evolution of the Railway Diagrammatic Map. None of which is meant to diminish Beck’s achievement (I think), but serves to remind us that no innovation ever occurs in a vacuum. [Kenneth Field]
A Look at European Bus Map Design
Transit map designer Jug Cerović has reposted a look at the state of the art of European bus network maps. “I have studied more than 250 European cities and their bus maps, and have also designed a few. Here are some observations about the state of the practice.” He groups bus maps into three categories, based on how they use colour: maps that use colour to show the technology used (bus, metro, subway); maps that use colour to indicate individual lines; and maps that use colour and width to show bus frequency. Now Jug shows examples of each, and goes through the pros and cons, but he does have some skin in this game: he’s a fan of frequency maps, which he suggests solves the problems of the other two kinds, and in fact has produced frequency maps for Luxembourg (above) and Utrecht. Definitely worth a read if you’re interested in transit map design.
Previously: INAT London Metro Map; One Metro World.
Colour Differences in Metro Maps
Scientific American reprints a 2016 article from The Mathematical Intelligencer on an obscure, but important, corner of transit map design: how to choose a colour for a metro line. The discussion is rather math heavy (and therefore above my pay grade), but the gist is that for ease of use lines’ colours should look as different from one another as possible, and it gets more complicated as you add more lines. “Not only must the new colors be unlike the old ones, but also they must differ from each other as much as possible.” The article discusses the math involved in choosing new colours. [WMS]
Previously: The Transit Line Colour Palette.
Examples of Multivariate Maps
Jim Vallandingham looks at multivariate maps:
There are many types of maps that are used to display data. Choropleths and Cartograms provide two great examples. I gave a talk, long long ago, about some of these map varieties.
Most of these more common map types focus on a particular variable that is displayed. But what if you have multiple variables that you would like to present on a map at the same time?
Here is my attempt to collect examples of multivariate maps I’ve found and organize them into a loose categorization. Follow along, or dive into the references, to spur on your own investigations and inspirations!
Jim’s examples of maps that display more than one variable include 3D maps, multicolour choropleth maps, multiple small maps, and embedded charts and symbols. Useful and enlightening.