11/24/2008
The (Mostly) True Story of Helvetica and the New York City Subway
A history of the signs and signage systems (and often lack thereof) in my city’s confusing conglomerate of mass transit stations. By Paul Shaw,
whose class sparked my interest in typography into a full-fledged obsession.
by seanomenon at 10:42 pm under design,retro,transportation,urban
2 Comments
Very cool. I’ve seen the remnants of old signage (some of which can be found in the very worthwhile—don’t let the crappy MTA website fool you—NYC Transit Museum), and wondered how the hell anyone ever figured out where they were going. Especially back when you had to negotiate between the IRT, BMT and IND systems.
Now (thanks to efficiently clean Swiss type and a comprehensive system) I am only mildly, intermittently confused.
On this note, seanomenon (and pretty much all of you), you must purchase this book: Transit Maps Of The World. I bought it a few months ago, and it’s wonderful. I read a review calling it “subway-porn”, and it’s basically true. Geek stimulators are in the red.
On a related note, the Moscow subway map is soooooo hot.