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Do you find subway-style to be a good method of conveying information? People seem to have agreed that the use of distinct colors is good, but are there more efficient ways of conveying the same info, for a given size? For example London tube map doesn't waste space to show actual distance and I am looking for other ideas on how to compress this.

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The designer suggests it was done for aesthetic reasons. More importantly it held my interest a lot longer than a typical map might have, and thus I now know more about Ancient Roman roads!

I can't stand these subway maps. I carry a copy of the geographic tube map on my phone. I want to relate the locations to reality, and these subway maps fail to do that. I could possibly go along with a geographic map that changed scale toward the outside, as long as it included contour lines to indicate the reducing scale.

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