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used to be the f train, now it’s the victoria line

with 3 comments

While, overall, the London Underground works a lot better than the NYC subway system (how many times did I wait for 15 minutes for the F at Bergen? Waiting 15 minutes here would lead you to think that something terrible had happened topside) I do definitely miss the MTA design elements. Labelling things with single letters and numbers will always, always beat giving them (often political freighted) names, just as numbering streets will always be more modern and wonderful than all those dead folks clotting up our maps and making everything vastly more difficult to navigate. And placing those letters and numbers in sharply colored circles redoubles the fun…

The picture above is from a very nice post on Christoph Niemann’s NYT blog. Sometimes it seems like the only true barometer of things worth keeping in this world - especially when the aesthetics of everyday life are concerned - are things that are worthy of childhood obsessions.

Written by adswithoutproducts

July 3, 2008 at 2:55 pm

Posted in simplicity

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3 Responses to 'used to be the f train, now it’s the victoria line'

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  1. Ah, I saw this and was going to forward it to you. I liked those images. Are they ads without products?

    Sisyphus

    4 Jul 08 at 12:57 am

  2. the train symbols certainly are the baseline ads without products, yes. mmm….

    CR

    4 Jul 08 at 9:17 am

  3. I found another example of isotypes ….

    http://www.justseeds.org/blog/2008/06/prison_nation_opens.html

    If I could find time I’d like to go over and see this exhibit…

    Sisyphus

    4 Jul 08 at 11:15 pm

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