Subway Map (Re)design

Above: The Tokyo Subway Map.

Not being fluent in Japanese, it must be said, I find this map very confusing however I assume that for a resident of Japan, it must be easy to understand. I make this assumption because the above map follows all the rules laid down by Harry Beck in 1933 and followed by Massimo Vignelli in 1972; The various lines are represented by different colours; the lines are all at 45 or 90 degrees; each station is represented by a box (rather than a circle, presumably to accommodate the form of the Japanese symbols); and the appropriate geographical liberties have been taken.

Are these the unwritten rules of railway map design?

Korean designers Kim Ji-Hwan and Jin Sol plan on redesigning underground maps from around the world starting with Tokyo, Seoul and Osaka. According to them, each cities subway and railway structures should reflect the character of that city in some way.

The above image shows the intricate network of Tokyo's subway, lightrail and monorail with over 1500 stations covering the metropolitan area.  The centre of this map has the Imperial Palace, and the subway lines circumvent the grounds that surround (are claimed by) it. This characteristic is visualized in this map by the concentric circles spreading outwards through the city. This representation of circles is suggestive of the Japanese national flag and the subsequent Japanese identity expressed in the flag. 

I think it looks great, yet I can't help but wonder if a stronger suggestive visual effect could be achieved if the map was made white. I'll do a bit of photoshopping on this one I think, I'm too curious.

White background. Is this another unwritten golden rule of map visualizations? 

New York Subway (a comparison)

Further to my obsession of the London Underground, I thought it would make sense to have a look at how other underground networks from around the word have been visualized.

In 1972, Italian designer Massimo Vignelli re-designed George Solomon's New York Subway map; and I think it is a fantastic piece of work. 

All the lines are represented by different colours, and each station represented by a black dot. In contrast to the original map design, the visual problem of awkward angles of the lines was solved by making each line 45 0r 90 degrees. Although this simplifies the map immensely, an obvious number of geographical liberties had to be taken. For example the map shows Central Park as a square rather than a rectangle.

However I do not see this as a problem. The aim of any map is to provide information in a way that is simple to understand/read. Re-proportioning certain geographical aspects of the map would certainly be detrimental to this objective. 

Do you spot a resemblance in this map? 

Obviously Vignelli was inspired by Harry Beck's design of the London Underground map (1933). Beck was the one who made all lines 45 and 90 degrees; and more importantly made the map a representation of the underground infrastructure, not influenced by the geographical layout of London itself. 

This makes me think about how visualization works. Do aspects of a design/map/flow chart etc need to be neglected in order to achieve ultimate simplicity?

communicating complex (or simple) information

We have an overwhelming amount of information all around us. We can see it and we can understand it, however one of the greatest challenges for a designer is to make sense of this information.

Don't take the word "information" too literally. Bear in mind that everything around us contains an element of information for us to interpret. For example, a ball has affordance in that it sends a visual clue as to how it should be used. We know to bounce, throw or kick a ball; and we know not to eat it!

Some information is often difficult to communicate to others. This hypothesis is something I have began to expand on in my area of research for my Master of Design degree. How can designers be good "Visualization Artists?"

It has proved useful to me in the past to be able to articulate my ideas/thoughts/research to others through giving examples. For this example, I'd like to write about one of most fascinating visualizations of complex information from one of my favourite cities, London. 

The London Underground has 11 lines and 268 stations. Approximately 4.25 million people use the underground everyday. 

The sheer complexity of the infrastructure of lines and stations was simplified beautifully by Harry Beck, an engineering draughtsman, in 1933. The London Underground map a perfect example of great "visualization" as it demonstrates how complicated information (the line and station infrastructure) can be communicated in a graphic language (a map) that is both easy to understand and remember. 

Over the festive season I plan on taking a little break from my studies, but I will be keeping my mind active by reading a few books on the topic of visualization:

Kress, G (2006) Reading Images: The Grammar of Visual Language. Routledge, London.

McCloud, S (1993) Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Kitchen Sink Press, New York, NY.

Carroll, J (2002) Usability Engineering. Scenario-Based Development of Human-Computer Interaction. Kaufmann Publishers, San Francisco, CA.

Kim, S (2004) VizAbility: Learn to Communicate Visually. Course Technology, Boston, MA.