… this is really the clearest kind of map I have ever seen in terms of information for the subway. It’s very simple. Every subway line on the map has a color, and in reality they already have one. And every station has a dot, you know. Every stop is a dot—no dot, no stop. It couldn’t be easier than that. There is nothing to fragment the legibility of this. Instead, if you look at today’s map, it’s a total disaster, with fragmentation all over the place. I can show it to you. And this is what we tried to avoid.

One of the problems they had in New York is that the people, they couldn’t relate the geography with the station, with the lines, and they were confused by that. But it’s just because they shouldn’t. There were neighborhood maps in the subway stations, so really there’s no reason why this map had to be literal—it could be completely abstract. But I think that it would’ve been even better if I had pushed the envelope even further and not had anything, just the lines and the stops. Maybe that would have been better. Otherwise, it’s perfect—I think it’s the most beautiful spaghetti work ever done. It’s terrific. And it’s so clear, it’s unbelievable.

Massimo Vignelli.