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BL2 schreef: ↑

09 sep 2025 14:36

(En dit allemaal in 2 minuten kijken..........)

Brand new map: Netherlands Railways as circles, my first design of an entire country.

Utrecht takes its place at the rightful centre of the Netherlands, at least as far as the railways are concerned.

The biggest challenges:

Amsterdam is a rail hub in its own right, which causes a geometric fight with Utrecht.

Self-imposed design priorities: all text horizontal; no station names interrupting lines, keeping the map as compact as possible. It is perfectly legible at A2 and looks really nice at A1.

Keeping topographical distortion under control. I referred to a detailed geographical map of the network at all stages of the design process, and track layouts where available. Most of the resulting map is spatially plausible. The worst distortions are usually owing to keeping the design compact, rather than limitations of the design rules themselves.

Bundling the services together so that they are conceptually coherent without overwhelming the map with colour, hence assisting the user in understanding how the network functions.

As a bonus I managed to include all the Great Rivers and the IJssel, which grounds the map and gives some nice balance to the railways.

Should the Netherlands be mapped in this way?

If a map is attractive, usable and engaging, capturing people’s attention, then it is half way to serving its purpose. The official design is, well, challenging, even for an expert at interpreting transport maps.