[Credit: Men’s Vogue]
The 1972 New York subway map is back! Massimo Vignelli, the man behind this graphic design classic, was asked by Men’s Vogue to update his legendary map for the magazine’s May issue, reflecting more than 30 years’ worth of changes.
When it was first released in 1972, the map was both beloved and hated for its high level of abstraction and artistic freedom (the 50th Street and Broadway stop, for example, was east of 8th Avenue instead of west). Some New Yorkers remarked that the map succeeded in its obvious intention to make it easy for tourists to get lost.
To placate the critics, later versions by other designers added neighborhood names, landmarks, and green parks, and in 1998, the map started including bus and ferry routes. Even on his retro-map, however, Vignelli remains a purist: “On purpose we rejected any visual reference to nature or landmarks.”
(Hat tip to Sara Munday!)
