Midtown Manhattan, 1:00am

Found: Manhattan, Upper West Side, October 2010

One of the earliest forms of graphic design in my mind is cartography. An elegant production of visual communication that has been refining itself since the dawn of man. Yeah, I like maps.

This past spring here in New York City, the MTA unveiled a new subway map, the first update of the map since 1998. And while the map has been reviewed in the press, as a designer, map lover and most importantly as a rider, I wanted to give my thoughts.

The old subway map suffered from an overwhelming amount of information some of which was really unnecessary for most riders. For example, the bus information always was an annoyance to me. It’s always just served as clutter the map.

One striking thing about the new map is the decision to reduce the size of Staten Island in relation to the other boroughs. This allows the other boroughs — where most of the trains (and people) are — to be enlarged. Apparently, there was some uproar about this decision, but personally, I’m fine with it. Guess what? I’ve lived here six years and never met anyone from Staten Island. All the other boroughs? Yep, lots of people, lots of times. In fact, I’ve never even been out to Staten Island. Maybe someday I’ll go, but I’ll probably take the ferry. Reducing it’s prominence on the map — even if the geographic proportions are not accurate — is a good design decision.

A large portion of the distracting bus route information has also been removed which I whole-heartedly approve of. It allows the map to focus on it’s main goal — the subway system.

One thing I don’t like about the new map is the color change for the parks. They’re no longer a true green and are much more subtle than in the previous map. The colors of the parks and the surrounding city are so similar as to make the parks almost unnoticeable. While I like maps, I also like parks and since many of the viewers of this map are tourists, I would think the city would want to highlight the green spaces.

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Update: I’ve noticed that the version of the new map that actually is posted in subway cars contains even less of the pop out bus information boxes making for a cleaner (and clearer) presentation.

I dug up this old advertising pamphlet in my mother’s basement and beyond the New York City connection, I was inspired by the retro artwork of 1960’s advertising (not to mention the cocktail culture which it was a part of).

A few other interesting notes:

• The Unisphere (which just underwent a $2 million dollar renovation) appears to be a registered trademark of United States Steel and copyright of the New York World’s Fair 1964-1965 Corporation. I never would have guessed that.
• The entire brochure is produced by Southern Comfort and is essentially a product tie-in for the World’s Fair event. For every category of cocktail in the brochure, they provide a Southern Comfort enhanced version. I guess some things never change.
• Strangely enough, I do take pride in how the pamphlet boasts of the skills of New York bartenders (or mixologists to use the modern vernacular). This has nothing to do with my sampling of the wares of said mixologists and more to do with my belief that NYC is the center of the universe.

Stay tuned for more 1960’s advertising dug up from my mother’s basement.

The gaming site Kotaku has posted the entire Sony Move brochure I designed — every page. Maybe it’s some attempt to one-up IGN who posted just the comparison chart page last week. You can view the post here.

Again — they seem unable to work the scanner/copier as the pages aren’t even straight. Sigh. At least the comments are funny this time around.

In terms of the design — I wanted to create a new cover (like I did for the holiday brochure), but Sony ran out of time/budget and so we went with one based on another marketing brochure that Sony had developed internally. And although I did illustrate some of the elements (such as the line drawing of the Move controller), the action photos generating comments were provided as is by Sony.

Want to know what it’s like to live in NYC? This short film pretty much captures the feel.

THE BEAT OF NEW YORK from tim hahne on Vimeo.

A page from another Sony Move brochure I designed got picked up and posted online fueling a ton of comments from gamers on the Move motion controller. Over 600 comments and counting at this point. You can view the chart and join the fray here.

As a side note, it’s a little disappointing that IGN couldn’t be bothered to get a clean scan of the page. It looks like they used it as a napkin before scanning and posting it. It’s not a big deal for me (I know how the page should look), but as a “publisher” it shows a real lack of concern for quality (and therefore a disdain for their viewers).