Designed by Massimo Vignelli. This underground transport hub doubles as an art gallery. massimo vignelli recently updated his iconic 1972 new york city subway map for the may 2008 issue of men’s vogue. Rather than depend on sign makers to determine the appropriate spacing between the letters of the station names, the designers embedded alignment marks against every letter, with an index to determine the width of the space between it and the preceding letter. Over the years, many different companies had been commissioned to provide the underground signage, and so directional signs competed with one another in terms of size, typeface, use of abbreviations, and in many cases, even lighting. The Graphics Standards Manual had the visual identity of the system covered, but to pull the entire experience together, an entirely different challenge remained: a map for efficiently navigating it. All rights reserved. But just as important as knowing which information should be fed to users, is knowing what should be withheld. A visit to the MET. The most likely scenario for the user is finding where you are on the line and counting the number of stops it takes to get to where you want to go. Original maps for the privately opened Interborough Rapid Transit Company (IRT), which opened in 1904, showed subway routes as well as elevated routes. The designers would need to understand what billions of people were looking for, where they would look for it and, ultimately, provide it, in the least confusing way possible. *As of Tuesday, January 23, 2018, this map is no longer visible. In 1960, together with his wife Lella Vignelli, he established the Vignelli Office of Design and Architecture in Milan. This new excitement is probably a combination of new eyes seeing the poster in its native habitat for the first time and amazement at the fact it’s still there (although the poster’s home underneath plexiglass may explain the latter). We depend on ad revenue to craft and curate stories about the world’s hidden wonders. Massimo Vignelli. Use code WONDER20 for 20% off all online experiences! The Vignelli Subway Map Goes Digital. They studied their habits. “It could be completely abstract.”. Unimark’s in-depth research into the user experience and the resulting graphic design considerations culminated in The New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual, which appeared in 1970. Page unfolded measures 21" x 18" and folded 7" x 3 1/2". To arrive at this point, he had to quantify all of the possibilities and consider all logic. She was familiar with their earlier design work, and recommended them to her contacts at the New York City Transit Authority—the operators of the city’s subway system. Whether you’re an urban dweller passing through the turnstiles on a daily basis, or a first-time visitor using it to navigate your way through the Big Apple, you’re one of five million who use the 112-year-old subway system every day. 1972 modernist subway map by designer, Massimo Vignelli who also designed the New York City Transit Authority’s Graphic Standards Manual in 1970. Water was beige and Central Park was square and scaled-down. Follow us on Twitter to get the latest on the world's hidden wonders. Massimo Vignelli's subway diagram is a hallmark of modernist elegance, distilling New York's huge, complicated transit system into a sequence of straight lines, rainbow colors and black dots. This left Vignelli’s as a much-maligned, but also a much-revered treasure for graphic design enthusiasts. Offer subject to change without notice. “As a design consultancy, particularly in the sense that we think of design consultancies today, this was the beginning of when graphic designers realized that they could make consulting their practice,” says Alexander Tochilovsky, Design Curator at the Herb Lubalin Study Center of Design and Typography at The Cooper Union in New York City. Remembering Massimo Vignelli, Acclaimed Designer of Controversial 1972 Subway Map May 28th, 2014 Massimo Vignelli, the influential graphic designer who reimagined the MTA New York City Transit subway system as a neat grid of colored lines surrounded by a beige ocean, died Tuesday in Manhattan at the age of 83. © 2020 Atlas Obscura. Visually, the new map combines the styles of two past maps, each beloved in their own way. Taking the subway? He also designed the network of signage used to navigate the New York City subway. This insane piece of infrastructure, over a century in the making, is a modern marvel, and one of the earliest examples of user experience design as we know it today. “In the same context of the larger wayfinding system, a significant part of the map’s design strategy comes from withholding information that isn’t necessary, in an effort to make the experience of gaining the actual information that you do need much easier. Subway map designer Massimo Vignelli’s Upper East Side home hits the market for $6.5M By Devin Gannon, Wed, January 24, 2018. Where did they look for information? Gift of MTA New York City Transit With the rising international popularity of graphic design standards, corporate identity, and a growing public awareness of ‘good design’, it became clear that the subway needed a new visual identity and a more effective navigational system. What’s the Deal with Architect Handwriting? During the 1980s, the original Standard typeface was replaced by the now-infamous Helvetica, and the 1972 map has since been updated to reflect a more accurate above-ground geography. Tourists found it difficult to match their destinations with the representations on the map. But for as long as it remains, tourists and residents alike can catch a glimpse of this controversial map, complete with its beige water and square park.