TATE YEUNG

Pardon my dust.
I'm renovating and this page hasn't been migrated and redesigned yet.

LA Metro Map

graphic design, information design

Brief

background

The LA Metro rail system is an urban rail system that services 93 stations on 6 routes.

problem

The LA Metro rail system map represents stations and lines relative to each other geographically. This is fine for most use cases, but its main flaw is that it can’t be reproduced on a letter-sized page.

challenge

How might we design a rail map that shows all stations and transfers in as little space as possible?

Parameters

role

This was a self-initiated project.

tools

Adobe Illustrator

time

September 2019

Use case

Designed to be used when you know what station you're at, and which station you want to go to, since overall geography is less important in this use case

Design considerations

Readable on a letter-size page.

No slanted text.

Local service on the Silver Line is included. (It isn’t on the original map.)

There’s also a variant that will be accurate in 2020: includes stations that are under construction, as well as the line realignments.

Follow the branding and graphic styles of LA Metro.

Execution

Current state of the rail system.

System in 2020, following completion of the Regional Connector and line realignments.

Iterations

Iterations of layouts.

Reflections

It was challenging to come up with an original layout that is more efficient for showing relationships between lines and shared stations.

When using this design to find a route between two stops that have more than one possible route, it isn’t possible to identify the shortest route, but it is still useful in determining the route with fewest transfers.

In earlier iterations, some transfer stations had the line icon on the right, which I decided wasn’t intuitive enough, and added an extra layer of complexity when laying out lines and stations.