Iconic Transit Maps: The World's Best Designs

by Mark Ovenden

Genres: Nonfiction, Design

200 pages, Hardcover

Published November 5, 2024

About the author

Mark Ovenden is a British writer and broadcaster whose previous books include Transit Maps of the World and Paris Underground: The Maps, Stations and Designs of the Metro. He lives in Paris, France."

Reviews

[Gen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very fun!

[Jonathan Shaheen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nothing better than reading about and looking at transit maps while daydreaming about when Minneapolis earns a spot in this book. Must be nice living in a city where your biggest transit problem is fitting all the lines onto a map. Despite our country’s pitiful transit, I still think we have the best map with the DC metro.

[Ipswichblade · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mark Ovenden is the foremost expert in this country regarding Underground and Light Transit maps and this is another wonderful book.

[Prashant · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Many of the representations end up performing a double service: visitors and locals alike use the diagrammatic maps as general guides to find their way around a city, whether they travel by train, bus, bicycle or on foot...

Those of us who design information for public transit systems know that the most important factor when attracting passengers is neither safety nor price, nor even frequency of service, but information. If a transit map looks inviting and legible, the city itself becomes accessible."

Cool book about some very important art.

[issa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this is a very accessible book for those looking to learn more about map design. Sometimes I wish there was a better book designer however as too many times I was flipping through 2 pages to find a reference of a picture back forth for multiple times.

I’m also not sure why Russia was omitted? I wonder if it was a lack of information or a purposeful omission due to the war.

However overall I learned a lot and had a great time annotating and writing down facts, it makes me wanna read about metro systems beyond map design.

[Rachel · Rating 5 out of 5]

SO COOL that i picked this up just a month after it was published all the maps were up to date!! love the cartography narration, also fun to see how transit systems grew over time