I started to look at other tube maps for shape inspiration and how other locations have designed station stops and interchanges. My favourites were the Barcelona Metro, Frankfurt Tube Map, Madrid Metro, Munich Metro and Paris Metro.
The Paris Metro map would have to be my overall favourite, with it having had a fairly recent redesign to be more geographically accurate, as there are natural curves in the lines where the stations fall in real life, so it was revised with circular shapes and curves in mind. I think this makes the Paris map stand out and sets it apart from other Metro maps for unique design qualities.
For The Progressive Tube Map I was inspired by Paris' ‘Correspondences’ design, where multiple lines cross at one station. It worked well replicating this on my first map as at the majority of the stops I had 4 lines crossing at, but for this new map it will only be one at most stops unless it is an actual 'Station' like 'Hormones', so I don't think this will work well.
The Barcelona Metro was a favourite for its background being an actual map of Barcelona and the fact that they’ve designed it in a way that will show people the surrounding areas of the stations they commute to. This isn’t something that’s relevant to my map, but I still appreciate this design choice for navigation.
However, having a background with its own text does make it harder to decipher the foreground of station names. I also think having station lines placed at varying angles across the map doesn't look the tidiest, and some areas feel very cramped when trying to read the text.
The Madrid tube map was a favourite for its simplicity. Despite having lots of tube lines, they were spread out enough that they fill the space and make it easier to track your stations. I also liked that the map felt portrait as opposed to landscape, and the idea that my map could read from bottom upwards as a journey rather than sideways as an alternative.
In addition to looking at line figuration, I am also looking at how the different maps handle displaying large/important stations where multiple lines stop, and how they handle a multitude of lines when it comes to their colour range and how it's dispersed across the map.
The majority of the Munich Metro’s tube lines all run alongside each other across the centre of the map before splitting off, which made me realise that mine could do the same, and the main structure of support, whether they are seeking a treatment that will masculinize them, or feminize them, are all lines that can run through the main body of the map, with treatment stations stemming off.
I like the big block-ness of the intersections running through the middle, they stand out as key, big points and I think that will work well on my own map.
On the Frankfurt map the majority of the it also consists of groups of 4, 5 or 6 lines all running alongside each other. I think I prefer how Munich's looks, that by comparison the big stops look more like speed bumps going up rather than key big moment pauses like the big square/rectangular ones on the map do.
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