New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual (1970) | Hacker News Reader

New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards Manual (1970)

thestandardsmanual.com

61 pointssmacktoward12 comments

Open articleView on HN

Just look at the diagonal lines on the 2 and 5.

http://thestandardsmanual.com/images/large/nycta_gsm_068.jpg

Gives me goosebumps.

Whitespace. Love it. Embrace it.

Massimo Vignelli, the author passed away this year. It was all over the news in Italy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massimo_Vignelli

The Vignelli Cannon is a good read http://www.vignelli.com/canon.pdf (pdf)

I'm going to be pedantic:

canon 1 |ˈkanən|

noun

1 a general law, rule, principle, or criterion by which something is judged: the appointment violated the canons of fair play and equal opportunity.

[…]

cannon |ˈkanən|

noun

1 (pl. usu. same) a large, heavy piece of artillery, typically mounted on wheels, formerly used in warfare.cannon 1 cannon 1

[…]

Thanks for this. I remember when his son called for everyone to write him a letter just before he passed. A life well lived and well deserved.

They have a Kickstarter to get a paper version printed, which I was very enthused about until I saw the price ($118.)

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thestandardsmanual/full...

I'm not sure why the MTA is making this a limited release.

Subways always seem to generate a lot of interest in fonts and signage.

I read this a few years ago, about the Toronto subway typography, and was intrigued:

http://joeclark.org/appearances/atypi/2007/TTC/inscribed/

Akzidenz-Grotesk is an interesting font choice. Its kerning makes it less readable than Helvetica but its glyphs are beautifully designed and very distinctive. It's an iconic font, but at the end of the day I think Helvetica surpasses it in terms of practicality.

Still wonder how MTA would look like with this design.

It indeed is beautiful piece of "UX" design. And as someone who live in NYC for quite a while: to only thing you can count on in the NYC subway system are the directions.

Live near the G, do you?

I lived near the A. Unfortunately not in NYC anymore.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com