The Science Of A Great Subway Map. The most famous New York City subway map is the one New Yorkers rejected. That would be Massimo Vignelli's system map from 1972. Vignelli's modernist design stressed visual clarity over geographical precision; all the lines ran vertical or horizontal, for instance, and rectangular Central Park was rendered as a square. Public pressure led subway officials to replace the map in 1979 with one much less distorted in style but also far more cluttered to the eye. Transit maps have a considerable impact on the everyday lives of people in cities. Traveling in and around busy urban environments can be tough for anyone—from the tourist visiting for the first time to the native heading into an unfamiliar part of town. So establishing whether a map like Vignelli's has merit despite its detractors is a matter of real consequence: the quicker people process information on a subway or bus map, the easier their lives will be.
The MIT mongrels draw on new scientific insights into peripheral vision. Simon Pascal Klein — Graphic & web design professional. The Drawing Machine. LIP. RossinaBossio. Sancho BBDO.