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TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 08:09:08 2007 ... and their graphic designer should be shot! Can you imagine a more ugly way of inserting the zone changes at the Ewell stations? Quite what was wrong with moving the diagonal through Cheam further to the left, then maintaining that diagonal until it met the vertical through Stoneleigh? |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 08:56:11 2007, in response to TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 08:09:08 2007. Yes, its almost as though Alan Foal went out of his way to make it look nasty. Unfortunately, attractive design has never been his strong point, which is why I get annoyed when lazy journalsts bang on about how the current map maintains the iconic status of the original. They have obviously not bothered to take a close look at it.Epsom to Waterloo looks like a slow indirect journey on the map, staggering off drunkenly towards Motspur Park, almost coliding with Thameslink at South Merton. No excuse for this. There is plenty of empty space that could be used in the area, but the Tramlink 'grey zone' is not helping. Even so, I can see lots of ways of improving this. Shame I can't 'vectorise' it, then it would be a few minutes work. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 09:30:27 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 08:56:11 2007. Actually, now I have managed to vectorise it, and I think I can see why. Its a horrible file, and the way the effects have been created (e.g. cased lines) and the vay in which the zones have been done make it really nasty to work with. Leave well alone, and only make changes if absolutely necessary, seem to be sound principles with this one. Also, this file has been created using illustrator, one of the nastiest, most clunky, counterintuitive graphics packages ever. Every time I start it up my toes curl up. If only I could convert it easily to PICT format. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by R36 #9346 on Tue Jan 16 09:43:15 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 09:30:27 2007. Check your e-mail. I sent you an SVG... Apparently before you posted this message.They probably optimized the file for viewing on the Web, which basically merges all the layers, downsamples images, and crazy stuff like that. Had they wanted people to change it around, they would have just saved the .ai file as a .pdf, but the file size would have been much larger, and much more inconvenient for people who still have a slow Internet connection. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 09:55:10 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by R36 #9346 on Tue Jan 16 09:43:15 2007. Could you send me it too? |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 11:40:39 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by R36 #9346 on Tue Jan 16 09:43:15 2007. Thanks, but being a Mac User running Syestem 8.6, it proved a tough one to open. Actually, I think that editing someone else's complex vector graphic is a bit like editing someone else's C code, impossible without some idea of the underlying structure. Easier for me to blow up the pdf to 800% and edit the bitmap, like so: Thats another way of doing it. As you can see, the zones need a little bit of adjustment, and Tramlink was a complete pain. To do this better, I would probably want to start again completely. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 11:40:56 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by R36 #9346 on Tue Jan 16 09:43:15 2007. It's a really really horrible map. 22-24 nodes to turn a line through 45 degrees!?! Their graphic designers definitely should be shot... |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 11:47:36 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 11:40:39 2007. Thats another way of doing it.Much better (I'd probably make Sutton diagonal, but that's just about fiddling for the sake of it). Now it's just the TfL version of Streatham Junctions that is particularly objectionable... To do this better, I would probably want to start again completely. Probably preferable with a map like that... How can TfL issue such a load of rubbish? |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 11:59:57 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 11:47:36 2007. There is a general ineptness around inner South London which is really nasty, e.g. Brockley to Norwood Junction, almost as bad as the RATP diagrammatic metro map. I take a very ruthless attitude to this now, apart from junctions, every bend in a map should be treated as a potential error. The designer should investigate whether it is possible to get rid of them. Its how I got to this:
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by David of Broadway on Tue Jan 16 12:55:26 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 11:59:57 2007. Ah, the map from your book that gave me a headache. Thanks for giving me another headache here. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 13:02:05 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by David of Broadway on Tue Jan 16 12:55:26 2007. Keep working on it, then you will get it. If you think that looking at it is headache inducing, you should try designing something like this. It almost drove me nuts. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 13:52:02 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 11:59:57 2007. :-) I appreciate it's a silly map, but Paddington's right! |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 14:03:42 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 13:52:02 2007. No, its a very sensible map. I'm absolutely serious about this, like the Dvorjak keyboard, people are so wedded to 45-degree angles that when something that breaks the rule is shown to them, they need to re-learn how to look at diagrammatic maps. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 14:49:42 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Max Roberts on Tue Jan 16 14:03:42 2007. No, its a very sensible map. I'm absolutely serious about this, like the Dvorjak keyboardWell, my major serious dislikes about it are: 1) that it's "wrong" in several places where lines passing under the Circle are shown passing over it; I know it's a bit of an in-joke that these are conventionally shown the right way up, but it just looks unnecessarily jarring the "wrong" way. 2) that kink in the Central Line west of Shepherd's Bush - I'm sure it could be eliminated by making the map taller. 3) I know you like compact maps, but Heathrow should be flipped back to the right way round. people are so wedded to 45-degree angles that when something that breaks the rule is shown to them, they need to re-learn how to look at diagrammatic maps. Well, the 45-degree system works. The danger is in 30- and 60- degree angles; these begin to look like isometric perspective. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Wed Jan 17 05:33:41 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 14:49:42 2007. 1) Circle Line in-joke: most passengers don't care about which line goes over which other, but they do care about being able to identify line trajectories. The trajectory of a double line (or even a triple one) is more easily identified and more able to obliterate the trajectory of a single line, therefore the single line should go on top: Psychology 101; better that an experienced user gets jarred than an inexperienced one gets lost. The experienced users will learn the new system, but there is always an unlimited supply of inexperienced ones waiting to gum up the works.2) Kink in central line: I don't like it either, but the Central Line needs one somewhere, and I would prefer to keep it out from inside the Circle Line. Making the map taller could permit its elimination, but would end up with Ealing broadway where Hounslow currently is. This map has just one bend that it could do without. The current official map has a lot more than one. 3) Heathrow: Why? How is the user going to be misinformed by this in any way. Is it even possibly to walk from T1/2/3 to T4 without getting killed or arrested? The map is not implying any information that could misdirect the user in any way (if the terminals were renamed TSouth and TEast it could). The 45-degree angle rule worked OK for Beck for London (but he couldn't get it to work for Paris). In fact, in pre-computer days the rule was essential. With a hand-drawn map, you would be permanently rubbing out and redrawing, the additional degrees of freedom that are given makes the design process very difficult indeed, every angle has to be thought about, and only a skilled designer can carry it off (most designers can't get a 45-degree map right). You should have seen my out-takes for this map, some of them are really frightening to look at. I know of no psychological or design theory that states that a single-angle map is easiest to understand, or the best for representing a transport network. Its just design dogma, like the 'golden rectangle'. Indeed, for Paris, I think that applying the rule is wrong. Here, the Metro lines often roll over each other and back again. In order to keep the relative positions of stations 'correct', and with only one angle and tight curves available, this has resulted in a horrible zig-zagging map with lines kinked all over the place. Each kink is an additional piece of information to interpret and acts as a barrier to interpreting the underlying structure of the network (the nodes and the links). With my map, the problem is that you are so used to the 45-degree angle rule, that when you look at a map that breaks the rule, it looks 'wrong', and you dismiss it. You need to teach yourself how to look at maps afresh. What I say to people, is look at this map (properly) for five minutes every day for a fortnight, and suddenly it will click, and 'make sense'. Its worked for everyone so far, including the MD for FWT Cartography. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Wed Jan 17 09:01:34 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Max Roberts on Wed Jan 17 05:33:41 2007. 1) Circle Line in-joke: most passengers don't care about which line goes over which other, but they do care about being able to identify line trajectories. The trajectory of a double line (or even a triple one) is more easily identified and more able to obliterate the trajectory of a single line, therefore the single line should go on top: Psychology 101; better that an experienced user gets jarred than an inexperienced one gets lost. The experienced users will learn the new system, but there is always an unlimited supply of inexperienced ones waiting to gum up the works.Fair enough. That triple line is actually really horrid... maybe we should go back to everything in green... 2) Kink in central line: I don't like it either, but the Central Line needs one somewhere, and I would prefer to keep it out from inside the Circle Line. Making the map taller could permit its elimination, but would end up with Ealing broadway where Hounslow currently is. Or the entire map could be rotated (yes, I know, a total pain, but a horizontal Central Line would make the map look a lot less weird (Chiswick Park to St James's Park isn't exactly the most obvious choice for the horizontal!)). Actually, it might be interesting to have a straight line from St James's Park to Ealing Broadway and have both branches of the Picc kink off... 3) Heathrow: Why? How is the user going to be misinformed by this in any way. Well, it's the least bad pair of stations to do that to for the reason you mention. I would like to see you do a funny-angle London Connections map though... The 45-degree angle rule worked OK for Beck for London (but he couldn't get it to work for Paris). IINM, he got Paris horribly horribly wrong. It would probably work with a vertical Line 4 and a horizontal Line 1. and only a skilled designer can carry it off (most designers can't get a 45-degree map right). Shame TfL don't seem to have anyone like that... You should have seen my out-takes for this map, some of them are really frightening to look at. Go on. You know you want to... A bloopers section would be a great addition to afterbeck.com! I know of no psychological or design theory that states that a single-angle map is easiest to understand, or the best for representing a transport network. Its just design dogma, like the 'golden rectangle'. Indeed, for Paris, I think that applying the rule is wrong. Damn you, Max. You're making me open up Inkscape and waste my afternoon... Here, the Metro lines often roll over each other and back again. In order to keep the relative positions of stations 'correct', and with only one angle and tight curves available, this has resulted in a horrible zig-zagging map with lines kinked all over the place. Each kink is an additional piece of information to interpret and acts as a barrier to interpreting the underlying structure of the network (the nodes and the links). London would be worse if we had more lines in sensible places - it's why the London Connections map's two versions represent two levels of horror and why my fantasy map is taking absolutely forever and I already hate the design! With my map, the problem is that you are so used to the 45-degree angle rule, that when you look at a map that breaks the rule, it looks 'wrong', and you dismiss it. You need to teach yourself how to look at maps afresh. What I say to people, is look at this map (properly) for five minutes every day for a fortnight, and suddenly it will click, and 'make sense'. Its worked for everyone so far, including the MD for FWT Cartography. It's a nice concept, and it basically works. I actually quite like it. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by David of Broadway on Wed Jan 17 17:02:42 2007, in response to TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Rail Blue on Tue Jan 16 08:09:08 2007. When did IKEA take over Ampere Way? |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Wed Jan 17 18:37:52 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by David of Broadway on Wed Jan 17 17:02:42 2007. When did IKEA take over Ampere Way?Wednesday 18th October, 2006. After |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Thu Jan 18 06:21:50 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Rail Blue on Wed Jan 17 09:01:34 2007. The triple line is really bad between Great Portland St and Farringdon on the current map, where it obliterates the Piccadilly, Northern, and Victoria lines. Some rip-off Underground maps separate the lines slightly (see p88/89 of my book), which permits glimpses of the others underneath. Technically, the teacup line is just one, so the Circle and H&C line could be merged (no plans to do this), Hammersmith and Circle Line anyone?Rotating the 'crazy map' as I call it might look tempting, but it interferes with some station name placements, and transfers the awkward kink in the Central Line at Shepherd's bush into an awkward kink in the District Line at St James's Park, an would throw too much of the District and Piccadilly Line ino the lower left corner. Evrything on this map has been done for a reason, albeit not necessarily an obvious one. As I said, I too am not happy about Shepherds But to experiment with improving it, I would have to start again completely. Once one little thing is changed, knock-on effects are felt everywhere. I would really need to lock myself away in a room for a month with no contact with the rest of the human race to do this properly, but I have so many other things to do. Hmm, London connections. I've sort of done this already. I adapted the map to show the BR London services which were comparable with the Underground: In the zonal system, with a service at least every 15 minutes 7 days a week, 18 hours a day. Its quite deptessing, although many gaps are down to sloppy timetabling (e.g. take a look at London/Lewisham on a Sunday: three trains every 30 minutes, but they all run within 10 minutes of each other).  Past work wasn't so much bloopers, as trying to optimise the concept. For example, inspired by Beck's notebook, (see pages 74-76 of Ken Garland's book) and discovering that SuperPaint had a feature that permitted constraining a line to 30/60 degrees off I went. Several people at the time were complaining that the official Underground map showed nearby stations as distant, so I thought that the extra angles would permit a diagrammatic map that was also not geographically misleading. WRONG! 30/60 degrees is not enough. You end up with a diagrammatic map that is geographically inaccurate and looks frightening, so I relaxed the angle rule still further. This makes the design harder to implement, and challenges human aesthetics still further, but it does highlight that kinks on a map are wrong. I might have some time tomorrow to make some scans, including the Met experimental stock, I haven't forgotten. Don't forget that with a fantasy map, it is sort of OK to modify your fantasy a little bit if it makes drawing the map easier. I've done this on mine in a couple of places, not telling where though! |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Thu Jan 18 09:33:18 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Max Roberts on Thu Jan 18 06:21:50 2007. The triple line is really bad between Great Portland St and Farringdon on the current map, where it obliterates the Piccadilly, Northern, and Victoria lines.It's pretty indicative of a rubbish service pattern. It's really quite tempting to abolish the Circle, divert the Met to run Finchley Road - Baker Street - Marble Arch - Hyde Park Corner - Victoria - Clapham Junction - [portal] - Wandsworth Common, and add a Heathrow/Slough branch to the Hammersmith & City Line. Some rip-off Underground maps separate the lines slightly (see p88/89 of my book) Ah, the "too much Oktoberfest" map! They still insist on putting a curve in the Northern (CX) Line at exactly the worst possible point though. Rotating the 'crazy map' as I call it might look tempting, but it interferes with some station name placements, and transfers the awkward kink in the Central Line at Shepherd's bush into an awkward kink in the District Line at St James's Park, an would throw too much of the District and Piccadilly Line ino the lower left corner. Evrything on this map has been done for a reason, albeit not necessarily an obvious one. Aaarrrggghhh! I would really need to lock myself away in a room for a month with no contact with the rest of the human race to do this properly, but I have so many other things to do. I can't imagine how you managed to get all the tick symbols right at those angles. Circles must have been tempting (at least they're the same every way up and don't get screwed up by snap-to-grid)... Hmm, London connections. I've sort of done this already. I adapted the map to show the BR London services which were comparable with the Underground: In the zonal system, with a service at least every 15 minutes 7 days a week, 18 hours a day. Its quite deptessing, although many gaps are down to sloppy timetabling (e.g. take a look at London/Lewisham on a Sunday: three trains every 30 minutes, but they all run within 10 minutes of each other). And beyond Moor Park is still rubbish! But really, it just shows how the service patterns in South London are a bad joke (places you'd expect to be there - e.g. Kingston, Sutton, Purley - still have that poor a service). Past work wasn't so much bloopers, as trying to optimise the concept. For example, inspired by Beck's notebook, (see pages 74-76 of Ken Garland's book) and discovering that SuperPaint had a feature that permitted constraining a line to 30/60 degrees off I went. A 30/60 map would look really really weird. There's a distinct danger of it going 3-D (which would actually be quite fun!). You end up with a diagrammatic map that is geographically inaccurate and looks frightening :-) I might have some time tomorrow to make some scans, including the Met experimental stock, I haven't forgotten. Thanks! Don't forget that with a fantasy map, it is sort of OK to modify your fantasy a little bit if it makes drawing the map easier. Well, I reckon stopping going perfectionist over Piccadilly Circus, King's Cross, and Euston would actually make me finish it. I'm beginning to suspect those areas will either always be horrid or make the map absolutely massive! Actually, I think I'll go and get on with it now, and leave those areas horrid! |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Fri Jan 19 05:32:42 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Rail Blue on Thu Jan 18 09:33:18 2007. Those angled ticks were easy to do, because I specified degree rotations for the lines themselves, so all I had to do was ask the computer to rotate the ticks by the same angle. I don't need grid-snap (which never works properly on any software) because SuperPaint only lets you edit vector graphics at 72dpi, which is actually perfect for mapmaking.Sounds like I had better get on and get my latest fantasy map done, then we can have a battle of the maps. Thought you would like to know that after almost 10 years of trying, I have finally got a central area that works well, not too many kinks, no cramped names, nothing that looks forced or contrived. Good luck. |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Rail Blue on Fri Jan 19 06:36:54 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Max Roberts on Fri Jan 19 05:32:42 2007. Thought you would like to know that after almost 10 years of trying, I have finally got a central area that works well, not too many kinks, no cramped names, nothing that looks forced or contrived. Good luck.How many kinks in the Picc from the angle at Hammersmith to the angle at Finsbury Park? It's certainly my least happy line... |
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Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map... |
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Posted by Max Roberts on Fri Jan 19 07:05:21 2007, in response to Re: TfL finally updates London Connections map..., posted by Rail Blue on Fri Jan 19 06:36:54 2007. Five, same as the current map.I've cheated though. Station names for Knightsbridge, Green Park, Oxford Circus and Piccadilly Circus are placed diagonally. |
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