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11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Comprehensive, colorful and creatively executed, 14 Sep 2005
By A Customer
This is one of the most amazing books you will ever own! An absolute MUST for anyone who has ever travelled in a foreign city and a revelation if you have never looked into the history of your own local subway.Students of Graphic Design will be enthralled as nothing like this has ever appeared before enabling side by side comparisons of almost 200 different cities' maps. Its one of those books you don't necessarily see the immediate appeal of but as soon as you open it and see the inherent beauty and good design of a subway map from another city you'll be compelled to leaf thru and check all the places you've ever been, then come back and look through all the other cities. The similarities - and the differences will keep this book on your coffee table for months I promise! This new edition is even better than the previous version, which in itself was an awesome collection of fascinating material from across the entire planet! There seems to be many more illustrations now (the publishers claim almost 700 in a 144 page book) and more photo's of subway systems to compliment the maps themselves, a most welcome addition. Small gaps in the history of certain major cities seem to have been filled (Paris, Montreal, Budapest, Madrid, Moscow, Kiev) and it seems almost every major map has been updated to the 2005 edition...making this now surely the leading world reference book on transit map design. Also the author appears to have taken a more pragmatic view of cities whose maps do not conform to the international standard set by British designer Harry Beck. Only criticism is that it's very hard to get hold of this book outside Britain - a bit of shame for a book with such a world focus, but thank God for amazon.co.uk!
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