"Think Small"
John Tauranac took Volkswagen’s philosophy to heart with his little Manhattan subway and bus map. Like the Beetle, his map is small, sensible, economical, and it fits in tight spaces. At 3 7/16 by 10 5/8 inches, it is scored and folds down to fit in a credit-card case.
A simple accordion fold does the job.
A panel from Tauranac’s subway map shows Midtown Manhattan from 28th Street in the south to 59th Street in the north. Clear, simple, and direct, with color-coded service telling which stations are served when by what lines. Squares and rectangles indicate local stations, circles and ovals express. Terminals are indicated by boxes in the color of the lines, with the number or letter of the lines that terminate there.
A panel from Tauranac’s subway map shows the same neighborhood. Instead of information being all jammed in and creating a daunting image of service, bus routes are easily distinguished, bus route numbers are perfectly legible and color coded to alert you to hours of service (red is a flag that tells you “Weekday Service Only,” for instance), and terminals are in boxes. The street names are set in Myriad typeface, the same face that you are reading. Tauranac has simplified the operation of buses by using only four colors – red for southbound, or downtown buses; blue for northbound, or uptown buses; and crosstown buses that are westbound are orange, and eastbound are green. Arrows complement the color coding.