Roberts M – TUBE MAP CENTRAL – 2017 2017

Description

The 2017 “Map of the Month” newsletters explore how map design choices—schematisation, typography, colour-coding and layout—affect legibility, usability and perception. Highlights include redesigning the London Overground to reduce grotesque topographical distortion and show fare zones; recreating a striking 1928 Orient Express poster while balancing historical fidelity and modern print; crafting Art Nouveau Paris Metro maps using Guimard-inspired lettering; and tidying Vienna and Berlin maps to reflect network logic and political history. The author uses Vienna to demonstrate six common design failures (poor simplicity, coherence, harmony, balance, topographic distortion and over-compression). Other pieces examine Southern Electric’s bewildering service patterns, an Arts & Crafts decorative Underground map for home, a 1937 Beck air-route poster, and matching design rules to city structure (Amsterdam, Köln). For the 50th edition the author fuses Vignelli’s route-focused style with concentric-circle rules for New York, arguing designers must align priorities with network form and users’ mental models.