Transit Maps of the World
by Mark Ovenden
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Book Summary Information
Author: Mark OvendenEditor: Mike Ashworth
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Original Language); English (Unknown); English (Published)
Published: 2007-10-30
ISBN: 0143112651
Number of pages: 144
Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics)
Book Reviews of Transit Maps of the World
Book Review: Beck and all
Summary: 5 Stars
A timely update to the first edition in 2003 with a new Zone 6 listing all the latest and proposed subway systems around the world. The extra Zone now includes hybrids like tram-trains, monorail or light rail and they all need maps. The other five Zones in the original have had their contents revised also.
I think the beauty of the book is in looking at the way various transit companies have approached the problem of communicating (sometimes complex) information in a simple way for passengers yet each map has its unique points. The book's authors rightly trace the origins of the modern designed transit map to London Transport's Harry Beck. His genius was to discard the geographic location of stations and have route lines as either vertical, horizontal or at forty-five degrees. It's amazing to see how many maps of the dozens in the book still follow this general principal.
However, creating a map that might look graphically stunning is not always enough. New York's MTA got Massimo Vignelli to design their map and it looks a visual treat but passengers weren't impressed and found it confusing so the MTA revised it. Vignelli's 1979 map and the latest 2007 MTA one are shown together on a spread in the book, two maps with the same information yet looking so different.
This update has a few more train and station photos to fill the space that was frequently left blank in the first edition and there is a nice touch with a spread near the back that includes some fantasy maps. If I have a fault with the book it is that in the new Zone 6 section many of the maps are so small that I don't think they were worth including.
I thinks it's worth pointing out that Transit Maps is not designed as a reference guide for travelers to cities around the world but as a celebration of the beauty that is inherent in these colourful diagrams.
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