The first two chapters of the part Principle of Ilya Birman’s Designing Transit Maps are out

Few designers have an occasion to design a subway map. But the principles and techniques discussed are applicable to any tasks of complex information display: org charts, family trees, control‑flow diagrams, fire escape plans, military operation plans, project timelines, architectural drawings. The book sharpens the reader’s eye and inculcates attention to detail.

How to depict routes on a map⁠—all with one line, or each with its own, separate line? Separate lines are usually easier to read, but when there are many routes in a city, you get thick bundles of lines running in parallel, and the eye gets lost in them. If you keep one line for all routes, the eye stumbles at every intersection. The map designer has to deal with this contradiction: depict the routes as separate lines and avoid thick bundles. Ilya Birman describes the possible solutions and illustrates them with examples from Stockholm, London, New York, Moscow, Budapest, and Paris.

In traditional cartography, the meaning of a line is indicated by its style. Depending on the thickness, pattern, and crookedness of the line, we know whether we are looking at a road, river, border, or meridian. On transit maps, lines represent the routes and usually have different colors assigned to them. Colors make the lines easier to distinguish and follow. What affects the choice of line colors? How are colors used beyond the map? How do you adjust colors with colorblind people in mind? In what cases can different lines share a common color? Ilya answers these questions and gives plenty of examples.

The chapter ‘Bends’ is available for free. In the chapter Ilya Birman shows good and bad ways to bend the lines, introduces the bend visibility principle, talks about harmonizing the bends in line bundles.

Preorder is available as before and you can start reading the book right now. If you choose to subscribe to the book before it’s fully published, you will get 2 extra months free. Your official subscription time hasn’t started ticking yet⁠—we’ll start your subscription clock later. The book is being published in parts, and the readers still have their paid year plus 2 months as a gift.