Comunicare il Sottosuolo

comunicare il sottosuolo

aura masciopinto - silvia schiavo

SOMMARIO

4

premessa

7

new york, 1901

16

parigi, 1901

27

londra, 1915

38

londra, 1933

49

toronto, 1954

62

new york, 1957

70

milano, 1964

91

hannover, 1975

102 new york, 1979 135 berlino, 1991 145 parigi, 1996 162 tokyo, 2008 183 bibliografia

PREMESSA

Quando si parla di graphic design in molti pensano ai brand delle multinazionali, ai simboli grafici, oppure alle illustrazioni che caratterizzano tutta la comunicazione pubblicitaria.

In realtà la grafica non si riduce solo a questo, bensì permea la nostra realtà e la vita di tutti i giorni in ogni suo aspetto.

Basta pensare alla metropolitana, che oltre ad essere il simbolo delle città moderne e del trasporto di massa è un importante esempio di design a 360°. Quando si parla di design legato alla metropolitana, si fa riferimento all’interno e all’esterno del convoglio, spesso in stretta relazione con la parte ingegneristica-meccanica, al design delle stazioni e alla parte grafica legata alla segnaletica. Il tutto deve essere funzionale nel rispetto delle normative e deve costituire un servizio di primo ordine per la clientela.Una buona grafica del trasporto garantisce un miglioramento del servizio. Oltre alla lettera “M”, simbolo di molte metropolitane, numerosi elementi grafici ricorrono sottoterra: dalle piantine dei mezzi pubblici, alle scritte delle località, dai manifesti pubblicitari alla segnaletica.

La nostra ricerca infatti è basata proprio sull’immagine coordinata delle singole metropolitane, per dimostrare come i servizi informativi hanno un ruolo chiave nella percezione delle indicazioni da parte degli utenti.

Abbiamo organizzato il lavoro seguendo un ordine cronologico, in modo che si possano notare le varie influenze e riprese dei progetti grafici meglio riusciti. Si può notare, così, come i designer si siano ispirati ai progetti precedenti, chi in un modo, chi nell’altro, copiando e poi rielabarando o solo come spunto in fase di ideazione.

Le informazioni raccolte all’interno del volume derivano da due diversi tipi di fonti: cartacee e digitali, che abbiamo voluto differenziare. In ogni sezione viene specificata l’origine della fonte utilizzata, grazie ad una immagine identificativa: 4

fotografia del testo originale o screenshot della pagina web. I testi sono stati tratti direttamente dalle fonti, senza rielaborazioni personali. Le didascalie invece sono state trascritte.

Sono state prese in considerazione soltanto alcune metropolitane: la scelta è caduta su quelle in cui è stata particolarmente studiata la parte grafica, in cui è data maggior importanza all’identità visiva e alla creazione di una buona immagine coordinata. Proprio per questi motivi, in alcune occasioni, è stato necessario considerare più volte la medesima metropolitana, in quanto progetti sucessivi indicano un’evoluzione, una diversa attenzione all’aspetto grafico in linea con le tendenze del momento. Ad esempio il progetto della metropolitana di New York del 1979 dello studio Unimark si differenzia da quello del 1957 di George Salomon, in quanto il lettering usato e l’identità visiva complessiva risultano più chiari, leggibilili e riconoscibili, in linea con lo stile dell’ epoca.

Per ogni progetto, nella parte iniziale della sezione viene indicato il designer, l’anno del lavoro ed il relativo logo della metropolitana.

5

1901 New York G.C.Heins, C.G. La Farge, S.J.Vickers

new york

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_tiles

8

new york

The earliest work was done by Heins & LaFarge (artists George C. Heins and Christopher Grant LaFarge), starting in 1901 and continuing up to 1907. Heins and LaFarge were both relatives of John LaFarge (brother-in-law and son, respectively), a leading stained-glass artisan of the day. They were part of the Arts and Crafts movement and worked in the Beaux-Arts architecture style, both of which were very much in vogue at the turn of the Twentieth Century. At the time of their hiring they had completed large projects at New York’s Cathedral of St. John the Divine and Bronx Zoo. As well as designing the artistic motifs, Heins & LaFarge also did much of the architectural work that determined the overall appearance of entire subway stations. They knew what materials would stand up well to heavy-duty cleaning and scrubbing; they worked with the ceramicproducing firms Grueby Faience Company of Boston and Rookwood Pottery of Cincinnati. Their ceramic artwork includes colorful pictorial motifs relevant to a station’s location, for example: the South Ferry loop station is decorated by 15 bas-relief representations of a sailing ship on the water; the Astor Place station is decorated with large ceramic beaver emblems, representing the beaver pelts that helped make John Jacob Astor wealthy; the 116th Street – Columbia University station includes a bas-relief emblem representing nearby Columbia University.

Their bas-reliefs in the subway have been likened to the work of the Italian Renaissance artist Andrea Della Robbia. Much of their tile work was station-identifying signs to guide passengers. Besides being beautiful, the images are helpful to New York City’s large population of non-English speakers and those who can’t read.

A traveler can be told to “get off at the stop with the picture of a beaver.”

9

new york

Helvetica and the New York City Subway System.The True (Maybe) Story, Paul Shaw. pp. 4-7.

10

11

new york

new york

ÂŹ selected IRT, BMT and IND mosaic tile directional sign.

12

new york

ÂŹ restroom sign, 1905.

13

BIBLIOGRAFIA di sezione

P. Shaw, Helvetica and the New York City Subway System, Cambridge, MIT Press Ltd, 2011, pp. 4-7.

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_Subway_tiles http://mic-ro.com/metro/metrofonts.html http://harlequingraphic.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/downbelow-the-street-helvetica-and-the-new-york-city-subwaysystem/

1901 Parigi H.Guimard

parigi

http://soundlandscapes.wordpress.com/tag/hector-guimard/

17

parigi

Thirty-six metres below ground, buried in the former Plaster-of-Paris mines of Montmartre, Abbesses is one of the deepest stations on the Paris Metro network – so deep that a lift is provided to carry passengers to the surface. For the more adventurous, it’s possible to do it the hard way by climbing the long, winding, seemingly never-ending, staircase. The effort does have its rewards, like the original tiles lining the walls of the stairwell.

Whether ascending by the lift or the stairs, the rewards waiting upon reaching the surface are certainly worth it.

This has to be the most photographed Metro entrance in the world. It’s one of Hector Guimard’s originals and one of only three that are left – the others being at Porte Dauphine and Place Sainte-Opportune. The Abbesses entrance was originally the entrance to the Hôtel de Ville station but it was moved to the Place des Abbesses in 1970. The Place des Abbesses takes its name from the former Abbey of the Dames des Abbesses founded as far back as 1133 by Adelaide of Savoy, the wife of Louis VI. The reputation of the abbey – and of the Abbesses for that matter – waxed and waned over the years but it managed to survive in one form or another until the French Revolution when it was finally suppressed. Madame de Montmorency-Laval was the last abbess and she came to a sticky end – she was sent to the guillotine in 1794!

Paris Metro Paris has a superb public transport system at the heart of which is the Paris metro. The man considered to be the “Father of the Métropolitain” was the wonderfully named Fulgence Bienvenûe, a one-armed railway engineer who had great experience of constructing railway systems but no experience of designing urban transport systems. In March 1898, the Minister of Public works authorised the construction of the first six lines of the Métropolitain amounting to some forty miles of track. Fulgence Bienvenûe was appointed Director of Construction for the Métropolitain and he embarked upon his task with enthusiasm.

The construction of the Métropolitain was a huge task.

Work began in early 1899 against the background of the other great project of the time, the Universal Exposition, which was to open in the spring of 1900. Unlike the London Underground where deep tunnels were bored, Bienvenûe opted for the cut and cover method of construction. This meant digging deep trenches at the bottom of which the lines were laid and the stations 18

built. Then the trenches were covered over and tunnels formed. This meant that Paris became a huge building site. Bienven没e continued to work on the metro until his retirement in 1934 at the age of eighty-two.

His name lives on today. The metro station Montparnasse-Bienven没e is named after him.

parigi

The work of the other man most closely connected to the Paris metro is iconic, instantly recognisable and is seen as the very image of Paris.

19

parigi

ÂŹ entrances for the Paris metro.

20

21

parigi

parigi

ÂŹ entrances for the Paris metro.

22

parigi

metros in frankreich, groneck christoph pg. 64.

23

24

parigi

BIBLIOGRAFIA di sezione

C. Groneck, Metros In Frankreich: Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Rennes und Rouen, Schwandl, Robert Verlag, 2006, pg. 64.

P. Baines e C. Dixon, Segnali. Grafica urbana e territoriale, Modena, Logos, 2004.

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://www.amtuir.org/04_index_htu_metro.htm http://www.soundlandscapes.wordpress.com/tag/hectorguimard/ http://www.mic-ro.com/metro/metrofonts.html

1915 Londra F.Pick, E.Johnston

londra

http://designmuseum.org/design/frank-pick

28

londra

Emboldened by this success, Pick commissioned the calligrapher Edward Johnston (1872-1944) to develop a typeface specifically for use by London Underground in 1916. He asked Johnston for a font with “the bold simplicity of the authentic lettering of the finest periods” while “belonging unmistakably to the 20th century”.

Inspired by classical letter forms, Johnston Sans consists of plain block letters of Roman proportions in which the main strokes are of equal thickness and there are no end strokes or serifs. Designed to optimise legibility for passengers who would see it across crowded platforms or walking briskly, Johnston Sans is based on squares and circles. The capital M is a square with the diagonal strokes meeting in the centre and the O is a perfect circle. The first version of Johnston Sans was unveiled in 1916 and applied to signage and posters throughout the network. A variation of the original, named New Johnston, is still used by London Underground today.

Impressed by his work on the new typeface, Pick asked Johnston in 1918 to redesign the roundel symbol originally introduced by the Underground Group in 1907. Johnston replaced the solid red disc with a white circle framed by red and applied his Railway lettering to the station name in the same palette on white on a dark blue bar. Again this was introduced throughout the network to ensure that all Underground signage was as clear and consistent as possible.

The posters too became more ambitious. Pick’s strategy of persuading commuters to visit London’s attractions during their leisure time had proved extremely successful.

Dissatisfied with the posters produced by the commercial artists hired by the printers, he started to commission them himself, from established and emerging artists, who soon considered it prestigious to be invited to work for the Underground Group.

Some commissions were given to celebrated poster artists, notably Edward McKnight Kauffer (1890-1954) who worked for the Underground from 1915. Having begun by working in a decorative style, he swiftly absorbed the influence of the emerging cubist movement and, during the 1930s, introduced many Londoners to modern art in his work for the Underground.

Pick also persuaded famous artists to accept commissions, including the US-born surrealist Man Ray (1890-1977), whose juxtaposition of planets at night with the roundel symbol is among the most beautiful of the posters commissioned by Pick, and the eminent British painter Graham Sutherland (1903-1980).

29

ÂŹ original drawing for the london underground roundel symbol design: edward johnston.

londra

ÂŹ johnston typeface.

30

londra

abitare n. 196, 1981. pp. 80-85

31

londra  i tempi della metropolitana, per quanto brevi, presentano tuttavia momenti di pausa. le panchine sono cosÏ pensate soprattutto per chi aspetta, ma anche per chi arriva, e si trova sugli schienali l’indicazione della stazione. per entrambi i motivi gli schienali sono alti: per consentire l’emergere delle scritte al di sopra dei passeggeri seduti e per ripararli dalle forti correnti d’aria provocate dai treni.

32

¬ il rivestimento in ceramica risponde all’esigenza primaria di una facile pulizia e manutenzione. tuttavia costituisce anche un’ottima occasione per giocare con i colori, formando cornici policrome e pannelli segnaletici, alle porte degli spazi pubblicitari. ¬ agli elementi costanti del marchio e del lettering, si unisce il simbolo grafico posto ad indicare la corrispondenza con un campo di cricket.

33

londra

¬ l'immagine unitaria della rete è affidata per larga misura al lettering. i caratteri elaborati nel 1916 da edward johnston sono anzi il filo conduttore di tutto il sistema di trasporti londinesi.

londra

http://blog.giofugatype.com

34

londra

Il logo della metropolitana di Londra, un classico del design grafico, fu disegnato da un autore rimasto anonimo fu per la prima volta riprogettato nel 1913 da Frank Pick, che era direttore del marketing del Gruppo delle Compagnie della London Undenground.

Egli commissionerà, nel 1916, a Edward Johnston il carattere lineare denominato originariamente «Underground», che fu però conosciuto con la denominazione di «Johnston’s Railway Type», e successivamente semplicemente come «Johnston».

Questo carattere era basato sulle proporzioni di un primo lapidario romano assente di grazie, e ancora oggi, seppur rimodernato con una sottile rielaborazione eseguita nel 1979 da Eiichi Kono per la Banks & Miles con il nome di «New Johnston», viene utilizzato per la segnaletica mentre il «Johnston Delf Smith» è composto dai caratteri della segnaletica storica; ambedue le font sono in vendita presso la “Transport of London”.

¬ studi per il logo della metropolitana di londra.

35

BIBLIOGRAFIA di sezione

Abitare, n.196, 1981, pp.80-85.

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://designmuseum.org/design/frank-pick http://blog.giofugatype.com http://mic-ro.com/metro/metrofonts.html

1933 Londra H.Beck

londra

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map http://warofyesterday.blogspot.com/2010/02/subway-map-i.html

39

londra

Beck’s maps Beck was a London Underground employee who realised that because the railway ran mostly underground, the physical locations of the stations were irrelevant to the traveller wanting to know how to get to one station from another, only the topology of the railway mattered.

This approach is similar to that of electrical circuit diagrams; while these were not the inspiration for Beck’s maps, his colleagues pointed out the similarities and he once produced a joke map with the stations replaced by electrical circuit symbols and names, with terminology such as “bakelite” for the Bakerloo line.

To this end, Beck devised a simplified map, consisting of stations, straight line segments connecting them, and the River Thames; lines ran only vertically, horizontally, or on 45 degree diagonals. To make the map clearer and to emphasise connections, Beck differentiated between ordinary stations (marked just with tick marks) and interchange stations (marked with diamonds).

London Underground was initially sceptical of his proposal, it was an uncommissioned spare-time project, and it was tentatively introduced to the public in a small pamphlet in 1933. It immediately became popular, and the Underground has used topological maps to illustrate the network ever since.

Despite the complexity of making the map, “Beck was paid just five guineas for the work”. After its initial success, he continued to design the Underground map until 1960, a single (and unpopular) 1939 edition by Hans Scheger being the exception. During this time, as well as accommodating new lines and stations, Beck continually altered the design, for example changing the interchange symbol from a diamond to a circle, as well as altering the line colours - the Central line from orange to red, and the Bakerloo line from red to brown. Beck’s final design, in 1960, bears a strong resemblance to the modern-day map. Beck lived in Finchley and one of his maps is still preserved on the southbound platform at Finchley Central station on the Northern line.

After Beck By 1960, Beck had fallen out with the Underground’s publicity officer, Harold Hutchinson. Hutchinson, though not a designer himself, drafted his own version of the Tube map that year. It removed the smoothed corners of Beck’s design and created some highly cramped areas (most notably, around Liverpool Street station); in addition, lines were generally less straight. However, Hutchinson also 40

londra

introduced interchange symbols (circles for Undergroundonly, squares for connections with British Rail) that were black and allowed multiple lines through them, as opposed to Beck who used one circle for each line at an interchange, coloured according to the corresponding line. In 1964, the design of the map was taken over by Paul Garbutt who, like Beck, had produced a map in his spare time due to his dislike of the Hutchinson design.

Garbutt’s map restored curves and bends to the diagram, but retained Hutchinson’s black interchange circles (the squares however were replaced with circles with a dot inside). Garbutt continued to produce Underground maps for at least another twenty years — Tube maps stopped bearing the designer’s name in 1986, by which time the elements of the map bore a very strong resemblance to today’s map.[8] Today, the Tube map bears the legend, “This diagram is an evolution of the original design conceived in 1931 by Harry Beck” in the lower right-hand corner.

While the standard Tube map mostly avoided representing mainline rail services, a new variant of the map issued in 1973, the ‘London’s Railways’ map, was the first to depict Tube and surface rail services in a diagrammatic style closely matched to Beck’s designs. This version was created by Tim Demuth of the London Transport publicity office and was jointly sponsored by British Rail and London Transport. Demuth’s map did not replace the standard Tube map but continued to be published as a supplementary resource, later known as the ‘London Connections’ map. Some alterations have been made to the map over the years. More recent designs have incorporated changes to the network, such as the Docklands Light Railway and the extension of the Jubilee line. It also includes major rail lines used for journeys within London, such as London Overground routes, and Tube stops with connections to National Rail services, rail links to airports, and river boats. Stations that can be walked between are now shown, often with the distance between them (this is an evolution of the pedestrian route between Bank and Monument stations, which was once prominently marked on the map).

Further, step-free access notations are also incorporated in the map. In addition, since 2002 the fare zones have been added, to better help passengers judge the cost of a journey. Nevertheless the map remains true to Beck’s original scheme, and many other transport systems use schematic maps to represent their services, likely inspired

by Beck. Despite there having been many versions over the years, somehow the perception of many users 41

londra

is that the current map actually is, more or less, Beck’s original version from the 1930s — a testament to the effectiveness of his design. Beck did actually draw versions with other formats, 22½ degrees rather than 45 (the Paris Métro version uses 22½ degrees as a base); and an unused version for the 1948 Olympic Games.

One of the major changes to be made to the revision of the Tube map put out in September 2009 was the removal of the River Thames. Although historically the river was not present on several official maps (for example, according to David Leboff and Tim Demuth’s book; in 1907, 1908, and 1919), from 1921 it was absent for several years (on pocket maps designed

by MacDonald Gill). The Thames-free 2009 version was the first time that the river has not appeared on the Tube map since the Stringemore pocket map of 1926.

This latest removal resulted in widespread international media attention, and general disapproval from most Londoners as well as from mayor Boris Johnson.

Based on this reaction, the following edition of the diagram in December 2009 reinstated both the river and fare zones.

42

londra

¬ before h.beck’s map, 1908. ¬ h.beck’s map, 1932.

43

44

londra

londra

¬ h.beck’s map, 1933.

45

londra

ÂŹ p.garbutt map, 1964.

46

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tube_map http://warofyesterday.blogspot.com/2010/02/subway-map-i.html

1954 Toronto Unknown

toronto

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

50

The Toronto subway has a typeface all its own.

You can compare it to a few other fonts, but no other face is exactly the same. And, for 50 years, pretty much the only place you found it was on permanent, virtually indestructible wall signage.

toronto

The typeface, in its original form, is a geometric sans serif in upper case only, with ten numerals, ampersand, period, and apostrophe, and an arrow (though a few other arrows are found on period signage).

Features: • Near-perfect circles for C, G, O, and Q. • Similarity of upper and lower bowls of B. • Near symmetry of E and F along a horizontal midline.

• An X that looks like a multiplication sign (clearly an incorrect form).

• A Futura-like S made of two hooks.

• Strokes that tend toward straight lines (even the stem of the distinctive low-waist R) and terminate at right angles.

• Spiky corners on M, N, V, and W that descend below the baseline or project above the cap height.

The typeface is often misidentified at Gill Sans, a typeface that will later become important in TTC typographic history. Even highly expert designers have misidentified the face as Gill. Vaguely comparable typefaces are Verlag, Bernhard Gothic, Metro, Neutraface, and Eagle.

Inside the original or old stations, the name of the station, very widely letterspaced, is sandblasted into the tile, usually right across the borders between tiles.

The letterforms are painted a contrasting colour.

(The colour isn’t broken up by the borders between tiles.)

The effect is subtly three-dimensional and gives a feeling of permanence. “At my station, Greenwood, stationidentification letters are 10’’ high and are spaced 3/8’’ apart (spacing of 0.3375 em).”

51

toronto

ÂŹ metro toronto typeface. ÂŹ toronto northbound station.

52

the effect is subtly three-dimensional and gives a feeling of permanence.

toronto

ÂŹ the name of the station, very widely letterspaced, is sandblasted into the tile, usually right across the borders between tiles.

53

Directional signage Old directional signage – signage telling you where to go within a station – typically uses white characters in the TTC font. There are a range of materials: • Black enamelled steel. Signboards are trapezoidal in profile (edges angle outward to the wall). Mounting hardware is internal and hidden.

• Enamelled steel is accepted as a long-lasting material for signage, but the TTC’s enamel signs have been durable – most of these signboards have apparently stood in place without serious damage or decay for 40 or more years. The signs are forgiving of vandalism.

toronto

Origin and variation By all accounts, no one alive today knows who designed the Toronto subway typeface. The original drawings (TTC 1960) do not credit an artist. (Since the drawings are dated 1960.12.12, they were drawn after the first installation of letters on a subway wall. That makes the absence of credit even more surprising; it may mean the designer had already been forgotten six years after the subway opened.)

The subway typeface does not have a name, although the TTC claims (2007a) it is known internally as the Station font. That name has not taken root with transit fans outside the TTC. No stable name for the typeface in common use apart from “the TTC font.”

There is actually a degree of variation.

•Two original stations, St. Clair and Eglinton, appear to use a light weight not found anywhere else.

•The S in type inscribed on coloured straplines along the tops of subway walls looks different from the regular S (top hook does not extend as far to the right).

The TTC typeface is a distinctive feature of the Toronto subway system. But it has not been uniformly applied.

Only in some 1954-era subway stations do you find reasonably consistent use of the TTC font. Every addition or renovation has added new fonts and new signage types to what should be a consistent system.

It’s happened over and over again during different eras.

All the original Yonge-line stations save for Eglinton have been remodelled – in many cases, because the original tiles, a glassy large-format material known under the trade name Vitrolite, decayed and cracked. Original TTC-font station designations were removed and replaced.

54

To this day, Eglinton retains its original Vitrolite tiles on most walls and, like St. Clair, still uses its light weight of the TTC font. But fonts were changed on most other stations on the original Yonge line.

The University end of the Yonge-University-Spadina line has seen its share of renovations. Osgoode and St. Andrew use a mixture of the old TTC font and Helvetica.

But some stations, like Museum, Queen’s Park, and St. Patrick, have not been renovated. Signage is decaying at Queen’s Park and St. Patrick – letters are fading to nothing, and people are scratching graffiti into the voids.

toronto

The signage problem Designers long ago began pointing out that the TTC uses a jumble of typefaces, but even a casual visitor will notice indications that signage in the TTC has recently slipped to seriously dysfunctional levels. In some stations you come upon hand-lettered signs pasted on pillars

by TTC employees. Obviously they’ve been hounded for directions by baffled riders, have given up waiting for assistance from the signmakers at head office and have taken matters into their own hands. Their sloppy signage makes the whole system look seedy, like a store that’s about to go bankrupt.

That quote is actually from 1994 (Fulford), but it could apply to any era from the 1970s to present.

For some reason, signage in the TTC is under the control of the marketing and public affairs department rather than, say, engineering or architecture.

Placement of signage in the marketing department essentially equates wayfinding signage with advertising.

A great many of the original enamelled-steel signs from the 1950s or 1960s are still in place. Most are attractive and most appear to be functional, though a few small signs with multiple arrows look confusing.

Signs were posted in the 1980s and (more commonly) the 1990s using Helvetica and a number of different arrows and pictographs. A common form uses an arrow cut out of negative space in a positive circle.

Southbound Trains and Northbound Bloor?

Information architecture leaves a great deal to be desired, as does basic legibility of Helvetica.

Many stations have signage in Univers. Some signage blasted into walls is set in Univers even in stations that otherwise use the TTC font (e.g., a “Southbound” notation at Wellesley). Collector booths at subway entrances can 55

56

toronto

have up to 17 different signs (rarely fewer than six even at extra booths that are unattended except at rush hour).

Handwritten signs were found everywhere in the TTC until a belated and righteously executed crackdown in July 2007 (Clark 2007g). Signs ink-jet-printed at home or by the TTC (typically in Times caps or Comic Sans) are also found.

toronto

Typography Gill Sans was used as the base font. Arthur’s reports to the TTC from the 1990s use the same rationale for selecting Gill, albeit restated a few ways.

“We have selected a letterform for verbal messages that harmonizes very well with the original lettering used to identify stations in the mid-fifties. It is called Gill Sans.

It is highly legible and readily available to sign makers” (Arthur R1).

“The decision to recommend this letterform was not based exclusively on its legibility, although that is important, but there are, however, many other equally legible letterforms. Nor was it based solely on historical accuracy.

“The real reason lies in the fact that as the new system is implemented no one wants to see the ‘old’ signs looking decidedly different or ‘old-fashioned.’ Besides, many of these ‘old’ signs may well stay forever as they are deeply etched on station walls and cannot be removed, except at great expense.

“The nice thing about Gill Sans is that it is so close to the original lettering that these original signs will look like they are part of the ‘new’ system” (Arthur R2).

“This elegant typeface, designed in the late Twenties by the renowned Eric Gill, is very close to the original letterform that was used in signs for the first subway built in Toronto. Its use in the new info system will act as a bridge with older signs that will still be in evidence for many years to come” (Arthur 1991).

Arthur (R3) viewed all “candidate” sansserif faces as equally legible.

Once the decision was made to select a sanserif over a serif face, there is very little, if anything, to choose from between the candidates from the standpoint of legibility.

They are all equally so and there is, moreover, relatively little difference in legibility between regular and bold weights. They, too, are equal in this regard.

The choice of Gill Sans is based on the fact that it is strikingly similar to the Futura-like letters originally used in signs for the first stations that were built.

57

Arthur and the TTC made efforts to improve accessibility for low-vision people and others with relevant disabilities, but conducted no legibility testing of fonts.

Additionally, Arthur misidentified the original TTC font.

“With respect to typeface, Gill Sans was selected specifically to maintain close resemblance to the original San Serif Bold 330J typeface etched on the subway walls in the 1950s” (Arthur 1993a).

“The original typeface etched on subway station walls in the 50s... is a letterform called Sans Serif Bold 330 J (from Cooper & Beatty’s typebook). It is strikingly similar to Futura and to Gill Sans, both of which were designed in the mid-20s. Gill Sans was selected specifically to maintain this close resemblance to the original type style” (Arthur 1993b).

Arthur’s photocopies from an uncited specimen book (R4) show that San(s) Serif Bold is nothing more or less than Kabel.

toronto

Paul Arthur’s design improvements • Redrawing and simplifying the TTC logotype.

• Drawing a specific arrow (thick head and single-line shaft).

• Eliminating confusing names for subway lines, like Yonge-University-Spadina and Bloor-Danforth.

Instead, all lines were numbered, and the existing but underplayed line colours would go into serious use for the first time.

• Rationalizing terminology, so that the subway became “rapid transit” while all other forms became “transit.”

• Simplified route maps in subway stations.

Among other things, one candidate subway-line map showed only the stations you could actually reach on that line, not the stations behind the current station.

• Adding pictographs to station identities.

• Covering the existing tile straplines (in contrasting but not meaningful colours) with new straplines in yellow, green, or other line colours, a station picto, and the station name in Gill caps.

Pictographs Designing the pictographs for all stations represented an enormous amount of work in distilling the meaning of station names, their histories, or their locations into a simple picture. Most icons for stations were drawn laboriously by Lance Wyman, who often had trouble 58

toronto

summing up station identities in one glyph.

Arthur originally assumed that researching the origins of station names would be tedious, but found a local historian, Mike Filey, who had the information at the ready (Arthur 1992b). At least a dozen pictographs were drawn, sometimes in more than one version.

“These icons represent considerably more than a mere design program. They cannot, for example, just be created on a purely arbitrary basis with esthetics as the sole criterion. They must be understandable across a wide spectrum of age and cultural diversity and they must be acceptable to the specific communities served by ]the individual stations so identified nonverbally” (Arthur 1992c).

Ultimately only four icons were part of the St. George test.

St. George used a winged dragon or a mortarboard (meaningful only to the highly educated); Bay used wavy water lines; Museum used a knight’s helmet; Spadina (an aboriginal word) actually used a feathered Indian headdress.

While the actual icons were never really tested for effectiveness, many subjects in the user test did remark on them.

New York and Toronto subway environments • The New York subway system uses station names that are often just numbers, lending itself to a grid system.

• The short names of New York subway lines have one or two characters. Colours are important. Toronto has four subway lines that have names of variable length, no short names, and (underused) assigned colours.

• Toronto has station names varying from three characters (Bay) to 18 (Scarborough Centre); the name of a roposed future station, again located in the middle of nowhere, uses 23 characters (Highway 407Interchange). A typical short subwaystation name in New York is Bowery (six characters); a typical long one is Westchester Square–East Tremont Avenue (38).

• The Sheppard subway was planned from scratch to accommodate future population growth and had relatively vast space available for signage.

59

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://www.joeclark.org/appearances/atypi/2007/TTC/inscribed/ http://www.mic-ro.com/metro/metrofonts.html

1957 New York G.Salomon

new york

Helvetica and the New York City Subway System.The True (Maybe) Story, Paul Shaw. pp. 12-16

63

64

new york

65

new york

new york

ÂŹ the 1958 new york city subway map designed by george salomon.

66

BIBLIOGRAFIA di sezione

P. Shaw, Helvetica and the New York City Subway System, Cambridge, MIT Press Ltd, 2011, pp. 12-16.

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://harlequingraphic.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/downbelow-the-street-helvetica-and-the-new-york-city-subwaysystem/

1964 Milano B.Noorda

milano

Unimark International, Jan Conradi. pp. 38-41.

71

72

milano

73

milano

milano

ÂŹ noorda compared typeface legibility from an oblique angle since that is how signs are often seen in the subway. he recommended repeating the station name to provide multiple viewing opportunities for transit riders.

74

milano

Helvetica and the New York City Subway System.The True (Maybe) Story, Paul Shaw. pp. 18-21

75

milano ÂŹ milano alphabet by bob noorda, 1964.

76

milano

¬ prove per la leggibilità del carattere. il carattere adottato dalla metropolitana milanese è una derivazione del carattere tipografico “grottesco”, il quale una volta ingrandito secondo le esigenze, risulta spesso troppo chiaro o troppo scuro. bob noorda ha studiato una modifica che riguarda soltanto l’occhio del carattere; l’altezza invece è rimasta quella del “grottesco”.

77

milano

area, n 109 marzo/aprile 2010. pp. 170-171.

78

79

milano

milano

http://ministerodellagrafica.org/la-sottile-linea-rossa-intervista-a-bob-noorda/195/

80

La sottile linea rossa Bob Noorda, ha visto il regalo di natale di MM a milanesi… la linea metropolitana rossa è tutta scintillante, peccato che non si legga più nulla…

Si vede che l’azienda oggi sta un po’ meglio ma io non so chi ha deciso di fare questa cosa, ho provato ma non riesco arrivare ad una persona, al responsabile, probabilmente hanno dato in mando tutto ad una ditta che ha tolto, pulito un po’ e riverniciato i pannelli (in realtà è stato sovrapposto un adesivo).

Ma non è meglio lucida che opaca come una volta?

Nel ’63, abbiamo fatto anche noi una prova con un bel rosso lucido, ma ci siamo accorti che con l’illuminazione che per forza di cose era parallela ai binari il riflesso sarebbe stato terribile, inoltre il lucido avrebbe evidenziato tutte le imperfezioni della posa dei singoli pannelli, e optammo per l’opaco, infatti ora si vede lo spessore delle scritte precedenti, tutto questo è spaventoso.

Inoltre hanno usato un carattere leggermente diverso senza considerare le spaziature originali, il tutto senza chiamarmi, forse pensano che io non ci sia più.

milano

Perché si lavora e si progetta così oggi?

C’è una mancanza delle parte pubblica, di chi è responsabile, non c’è una preparazione vera… forse non si sono accorti che erano lucide le nuove insegne, o che questo fosse diverso. Se prendiamo l’identità grafica e di comunicazione del governo italiano non c’è nulla. Io sono olandese, e li tutti i ministeri hanno un’identità perfetta, sono molto avanti, quasi maniacali C’è sempre una volontà di essere nuovi, qui no.

Comunque sia, è un peccato buttare via delle cose che hanno ancora un valore come questa segnaletica che è stata premiata con il compasso d’oro.

Milano è considerata la città del design, ma soprattutto grazie alla moda, e al salone del mobile, Milano era importantissima negli anni Sessanta, tutte le cose più importanti sono nate in quel periodo, il grosso problema è che nella amministrazione pubblica non sono preparati e non so perché. Ma anche per le imprese siamo in un periodo difficile anche per le grandi società italiane, le banche continuano a fondersi e sono evidenti i contraccolpi sulla cultura dell’immagine aziendale e per tutta quella grafica chedeve durare nel tempo.

81

milano

Ci racconti com’è nato il progetto della metropolitana...

Era il ’63, quando Albini ha avuto l’incarico di progettare gli interni della metropolitana e le stazioni erano già finite al cemento ruvido, lasciando molti problemi di comprensione dei percorsi. Abbiamo deciso di fare tutto marrone scuro, per nascondere le strutture ed essere poco sporchevole, le pareti perimetrali vennero ricoperte con i pannelli modulari, alla moda di allora.

Per la segnaletica abbiamo inventato la linea rossa continua perimetrale per tutta la stazione, questa idea nuova è stata progettata a Milano e ripresa alle metropolitane di tutto il mondo, questa fascia era ottima per la visibilità, e abbiamo avuto l’idea di ripetere il nome della stazione ogni cinque metri, in modo che vedi subito dove sei, il nome era previsto anche sulle colonne che oggi ospitano la pubblicità. Una volta stabilita questa fascia continua allora dovevamo pensare alle scritte, la committenza voleva un carattere alto, ma era poco leggibile poiché la vista è quasi sempre in prospettiva, allora si è optato per l’Helvetica personalizzato, creando una versione apposita con le aste ribassate e le curve semplificate ed il peso ottimale per la natura della metropolitana. Così realizzammo anche la seconda linea con lo Studio Albini, mentre la linea tre è stata progettata da un altro architetto, che poi è diventato presidente della società metrolpoitana. Mi ha chiamato per la segnaletica che però si è basata su un progetto diverso, con la scritta ricavata dalla lamiera, alternata con il porfido degli arredi.

La prima linea era pensata per una massima durata, nella seconda linea si è voluto risparmiare sostituendo i pannelli con della lamiera… arrivati alla terza linea si è passati a marmo e contro soffitti sulla banchina, facendo di tutto per alzare i costi.

82

delle informazioni utili. le fasce sono alte 25 centimetri e ripetono il nome della fermata ogni cinque metri consentendo al viaggiatore un affabile lettura anche con il mezzo in movimento. hanno

una verniciatura opaca per evitare fastidiosi riflessi dell’illuminazione sotterranea e un font specifico creato appositamente da noorda per facilitarne la lettura in velocità .

milano

 il risultato è la nascita delle famose fasce colorate che identificano le diverse linee. la sostituzione dei cartelli indicanti i nomi delle fermate con la fascia colorata consente una percezione immediata

83

milano

http://issuu.com/oblique/docs/bob-noorda_giornali#download

84

Bob Noorda, l’architetto dei marchi di Caterina Soffici Il Giornale, 1 settembre 2005

milano

Un tempo politici e dirigenti erano persone colte, di buon gusto. Oggi la committenza è cambiata, prima trattavo con i presidenti e gli amministratori delegati, gente di cultura, più sensibili. Oggi si tratta con figure di secondo piano, gli addetti al marketing… è tutta un’altra cosa. Il marchio della Vallecchi, per esempio, lo pensai direttamente con Geno Pampaloni, disegnai un’idea sua. Adesso non è più così.

Bob Noorda non è uomo che ama fare polemiche, ma è chiaro che non gli è piaciuto cosa è successo ai suoi cartelli nella metropolitana milanese. Era un progetto all’avanguardia, studiato insieme all’architetto Albini, autore degli arredi. Avevo creato personalmente a mano le lettere modificando i caratteri Helvetica per renderli più leggibili e avevo studiato i colori, la fascia colorata, la distanza delle scritte che si ripetono delle stazioni.

Un lavoro immane, in tempi pre-computer. Un’idea assolutamente innovativa che gli era valsa, nel 1964, la vittoria del suo primo Compasso d’oro (poi ne arriveranno altri due). Per quel progetto Noorda era stato chiamato a New York e a San Paolo in Brasile (“settimane intere sotto terra a studiare, i colleghi mi chiamavano la talpa”).

85

Lezioni di design trascritto da: Rai Educational, puntata n.25

milano

È stato così proficuo quell’essere arrivato a Milano, che insieme ad altri designer realizza la segnaletica della metro di Milano. Nel ’62, giusto? È talmente importante quello che fa che riceve anche il Compasso D’oro per quel lavoro. Ma ha anche realizzato quella di New York e quella di San Paolo. Cosa significa dare un segno così preciso a città così differenti? Come si fa?

La storia della segnaletica di Milano era una storia molto interessante. La metropolitana era completamente nuova.

La struttura era stata fatta in quel periodo e l’architetto Albini ha avuto l’incarico dell’arredamento delle varie stazioni. Il momento era abbastanza difficile perché le strutture erano tutte di una finitura in cemento ma non disegnato. Era tutto calcolato per il flusso del pubblico ma non come finitura, diciamo, con un’espressione già personalizzata. Allora Albini ha trovato una soluzione molto semplice, di mettere nelle pareti un certo materiale e risolvere tutto questo in un modo direi di grande design.

E io ho avuto la fortuna di essere stato chiamato da Albini dal primo momento che lui aveva incominciato a fare il progetto e abbiamo potuto lavorare bene.

Di solito succedeva invece che un architetto finiva tutto il suo lavoro e diceva: “beh, adesso ci vogliono un po’ di cartelli che dicano la segnaletica”. Invece è stata una stretta collaborazione, abbiamo tirato fuori un nuovo sistema che è questa famosa fascia, fascia rossa della linea uno e per la linea due fasci verde, che portano solo le indicazioni della segnaletica per trovare la strada.

In questi ambienti e anche sulla banchina per esempio una novità: prima di allora c’era il nome della stazione indicata una volta sola, in mezzo alla banchina e invece io ho proposto di ripetere il nome ogni 5 metri in modo che chi è nel treno ancora in movimento può subito vedere qual è la stazione.

Questa è stata una novità direi mondiale.

Ci sono altre metropolitane, quella di Montreal in Canada, che hanno diciamo copiato questa idea. A New York era completamente diverso, con 430 stazioni già esistenti, segnaletica inclusa, ma diversa per ogni stazione che poi finivano anche con un cartello di cartone o di carta a dare un ulteriore indicazione. Lì ho dovuto pulire tutto, fare un sistema sempre a fascia applicato ad una certa altezza.

Abbiamo potuto cambiare il nome delle linee mettendo il numero o in lettere, le lettere esistevano già, dando 86

un colore per ogni linea e trovando un sistema, messo in un manuale di applicazione che funziona ancora e io parlo del ’72-’73, funziona perfettamente bene.

San Paolo in Brasile è venuto dopo. San Paolo aveva tutta una serie di stazioni nuove, ognuna diversa, ognuna progettata da un architetto che ha potuto dare una forma in cemento finito. Allora lì non si poteva dire: “Applichiamo un po’ di cartelli” ed ho risolto con una banda di luce che si interrompe ogni tanto, dove c’era bisogno, con un cartello un po’ più grande con la scritta a colori, in maniera che erano anche luminose.

milano

Esiste un carattere Noorda, un carattere che porta il suo nome?

Quello della metropolitana di Milano. Ho disegnato lettera per lettera seguendo un carattere esistente, Helvetica, che allora era anche abbastanza nuovo. Però io dovevo usare questo carattere bianco su rosso, cioè in negativo.

L’effetto è sempre di amplificazione, il carattere si allarga otticamente. In più ho accorciato tutti i discendenti e gli ascendenti in maniera che l’occhio del carattere è più grande. Sulla banda continua funzionava molto meglio.

Per quello che ho dovuto disegnare non c’era ancora il computer, disegnavo a mano 64 caratteri.

87

Bob Noorda, il genio dei marchi: l’uomo che rifà il look alle aziende e ai metrò di Armando Besio la Repubblica, 16 marzo 2005.

milano

Negli anni Sessanta vinse il suo primo Compasso d’Oro con la segnaletica della neonata metropolitana milanese.

Fu l’architetto Franco Albini a chiamarmi.

Lui era stato incaricato di progettare gli arredi delle stazioni. Quella segnaletica ebbe così successo che poi mi affidarono anche quelle di New York e San Paolo.

Peccato che oggi la stiano rovinando con un restauro stupidissimo. Stupido, già. Non saprei come definirlo altrimenti. Avevo usato una vernice opaca, per i pannelli rossi, ora stanno usando una vernice lucida che spara negli occhi e quasi non si riesce a leggere. E stanno usando un carattere tipografico diverso dall’originale, molto più banale rispetto a quello che io 7 avevo disegnato. Potevano coinvolgermi, non capisco perché non l’abbiano fatto. Ma un tempo i dirigenti d’azienda, e molti dei politici, erano anche persone di buon gusto, ora non è più così.

88

BIBLIOGRAFIA di sezione

Area, n.109, marzo/aprile 2010, pp. 170-171.

Bob Noorda, il genio dei marchi: l’uomo che rifà il look alle aziende e ai metrò di Armando Besio, la Repubblica, 16 marzo 2005.

Bob Noorda, l’architetto dei marchi di Caterina Soffici, Il Giornale, 1 settembre 2005.

Francesco Dondina, Bob Noorda, una vita nel segno della grafica, Editrice San Raffaele, 2009.

Cinzia Ferrara, On the road. Bob Noorda, Milano, AIAP Edizioni, 2011.

Jan Conradi, Unimark International, Lars Müller Publishers, 2009, pp.38-41.

P. Shaw, Helvetica and the New York City Subway System, Cambridge, MIT Press Ltd, 2011, pp. 18-21.

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://www.abitare.it/it/featured/addio-alla-metropolitanamilanese/ http://www.abitare.it/it/architecture/riuso-del-moderno-02metro-milano-ciao-ciao/ http://www.domusweb.it/it/design/addio-a-bob-noorda/ http://www.domusweb.it/it/design/ricordando-bob-noorda/ http://www.articolista.com/arte-e-cultura/cera-una-volta-unasegnaletica-della-metropolitana-milanese.html http://www.educational.rai.it/lezionididesign/designers/ noordab.htm http://issuu.com/enricamasi/docs/inarea_tesi_atm_milano http://issuu.com/oblique/docs/bob-noorda_giornali#download http://ministerodellagrafica.org/la-sottile-linea-rossaintervista-a-bob-noorda/195/

1975 Hannover Unknown

hannover

http://www.floornature.it/progetti-infrastrutture/progetto-massimo-iosa-ghini-stazione-dihannover-4329/

92

hannover

Autore di opere di rilevanza internazionale, l'architetto Massimo Iosa Ghini ha progettato il rinnovamento della stazione metropolitana Kropke di Hannover, ideando una soluzione innovativa ed originale. Obiettivo del progetto è stato quello di mutare radicalmente l'atmosfera opprimente del luogo, mantenendo, però, l'essenza più profonda da cui è partito l'intervento. La "Main MetroSstation" di Kropke è la stazione del centro, su cui convergono 10 linee di metropolitana. Luogo a frequenza dinamica, non presenta servizi interni di particolare rilievo e si configura come un ponte che dalla periferia porta al distretto di Kropke.

Il lavoro, affidato allo studio Iosa Ghini dall'Ustra, la società che gestisce le linee della metropolitana, ha risposto alla necessità di migliorare la funzionalità e l'aspetto estetico della struttura preesistente; le soluzioni messe a punto dovevano, pertanto, essere applicabili a tutta la rete. L'intero complesso è stato rivestito con una nuova pelle: un mosaico in opale di vetro che, oltre ad essere leggero, ha aumentato la luminosità del luogo, attraverso colori chiari e con l'ausilio di un apposito sistema illuminotecnico. L'opale, alternato con un particolare granito ceramico, è stato utilizzato per rivestire l'intero complesso: dalla pavimentazione alle pareti, creando armonia di forme e colori. Tutti gli elementi aggiuntivi: dalla segnaletica, alle sedute, ai corpi illuminanti, sono legati al tema della dinamicità, proprio della stazione, luogo di movimento non solo fisico, ma anche di informazioni. Anche gli ingressi sono contraddistinti da elementi decorativi che facilitano la loro riconoscibilità e memorizzazione. Oltre all'obiettivo estetico, il progetto ha inteso migliorare tecnicamente l'esistente, intervenendo sulla sua fruibilità. Sulla banchina, per esempio, è stato messo a punto un sistema per l'incremento della luminosità in concomitanza con l'arrivo dei treni sulle vie di scorrimento.

Tutto il sistema illuminotecnico agisce essenzialmente per rifrazione sul soffitto e per luce diretta sul pavimento.

Le forme dei box e le pareti aggiuntive sono state disegnate per agevolare lo scorrrimento delle persone; altre soluzioni hanno migliorato il comfort come l’ uso di colori chiari per il rilassamento visivo e la sicurezza (posizionamento di specchi per vedere dietro le colonne, aggiunta di elementi nuovi con forme che migliorano il controllo visivo).

93

hannover

la stazione della metropolitana krรถpke ad hannover, progetto studio iosa ghini. pp. 44-45, 122-125.

94

95

hannover

hannover

ÂŹ rendering e schizzo progettuale per le bacheche segnaletiche.

96

spazio per la pubblicitĂ

hannover

bacheche di informazione

97

 il cartello con il nome della stazione, è sistemto sulle pareti della banchina.

hannover

lunghezza 225 cm altezza 45 cm ampiezza 7cm

98

99

hannover

BIBLIOGRAFIA di sezione

M. Iosa Ghini, La stazione della metropolitana KrĂ–pke a Hannover, Milano, Electa, 2000.

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://floornature.it/progetti-infrastrutture/progetto-massimoiosa-ghini-stazione-di-hannover-4329/

1979 New York M.Vignelli, R.Eckerstrom, J.Doblin

new york

Helvetica and the New York City Subway System.The True (Maybe) Story, Paul Shaw. pp. 63-67, 82, 83, 97, 88, 90-101.

103

104

new york

105

new york

new york ÂŹ study of subway traffic flow at time square station. drawing by bob noorda, 1966.

106

new york

ÂŹ study of subway traffic flow at grand central station. drawing by bob noorda, 1966.

107

new york

ÂŹ decision tree for passengers in time square. design by bob noorda, 1966.

108

109

new york

110

new york

111

new york

new york

ÂŹ new york city transit authority graphic standard manual. copertina fascicolo e pagine interne. new york, unimark international, 1970.

112

113

new york

new york

ÂŹ new york city transit authority graphic standard manual. copertina fascicolo e pagine interne. new york, unimark international, 1970.

114

115

new york

new york ÂŹ graffiti-covered interior of subway car, 1971.

116

new york

ÂŹ graffiti-covered interior of subway car, 1971.

117

118

new york

new york ÂŹ subway map and guide, new york city transit authority, 1967. the first edition of an ugly, cluttered diagram that lasted only five years. colors for each train marker (but not unique colors). stations are shown as boxes

containing the train marker letters and numbers. diagonals are mostly at 45 degrees, but the designer gave up on it in a few places. some part-time services are shown by dashed lines, but not all.

119

york: three line colors, route names given in boxes, free transfers highlighted in yellow, and symbols for express and local stations.

new york

 subway map and guide, new york city transit authority, 1967, designed by george salomon in 1958 and revised by others. beck’s principles adapted to new

120

new york

ÂŹ new york city subway guide, 1972. design by vignelli associates.

121

new york

ÂŹ new york city subway map, 1979. poster version. design by michael hertz associates.

122

123

new york

new york

ÂŹ installing a decal of unimark style siza at an unidentified BTM brodway station, 1979. ÂŹ porcelain enamel entrance sign with vinyl root decals. junius street.

124

125

new york

new york

ÂŹ new york city transit authority graphics standard manual supplements (new york: michael hertz associates, 1984).

126

127

new york

new york ÂŹ porcelain enamel door sign. fulton street. handcut standard medium with an R in helvetica medium.

128

new york

ÂŹ MTA - graphic standard manual (new york: michael hertz associates, 1988).

129

130

new york

131

new york

132

new york

BIBLIOGRAFIA di sezione

G.Celant, Design Vignelli, Milano, Rizzoli, 1990 Jan Conradi, Unimark International, Lars M端ller Publishers, 2009.

M. Vignelli, Vignelli From A to Z, Images Publishing, 2007.

P. Shaw, Helvetica and the New York City Subway System, Cambridge, MIT Press Ltd, 2011, pp. 26-49, 63-77, 82-82, 87-88, 90-101.

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://www.harlequingraphic.wordpress.com/2011/04/11/downbelow-the-street-helvetica-and-the-new-york-city-subwaysystem/ http://www.designerblog.it/galleria/massimo-vignelli-nellametropolitana-di-new-york/

1991 Berlino E.Spiekermann

berlino

abecedario, s.polano, p.vetta. pp. 222-223, 225-227.

136

137

berlino

138

berlino

 costruzione del simbolo per la città di berlino, che associa il logotipo (composto con il carattere thesis) all’immagine stilizzata della porta di brandeburgo.

berlino

ÂŹ studi per il carattere thesis.

139

berlino

ÂŹ studio della flessibilitĂ delle possibili declinazioni cromatiche e compositive del simbolo per la cittĂ di berlino.

140

berlino

¬ la mappa dei trasporti berlinesi progettata da metamesign; evolve dallo schema classico “a circuito”. intuito da h.beck nel 1933 per l’underground londinese.

141

berlino

ÂŹ mappa della rete di trasporti berlinesi.

142

BIBLIOGRAFIA di sezione

S. Polano, P. Vetta, Abecedario. La grafica del Novecento, Milano, Electa, 2002, pp. 22-27.

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://mic-ro.com/metro/metrofonts.html

1996 Parigi J.F.Porchez

parigi

http://www.typofonderie.com/gazette/articles/parisine

146

parigi

There are two common approaches to typeface design.

The first is to design a new typeface to your personal taste, following your own rules or restrictions; and distribute it either through a type distributor or directly. The second is to work for a particular client on a commission. Besides the fact that the financial aspect is more secure, this method offers an opportunity to design a typeface following a very narrow design brief, suggested by the client or governed by the client’s particular needs and uses. Technical, historical or design considerations are all quite difficult to imagine if you design a typeface for your own use.

Diferences After designing typefaces for newspapers, for small print sizes in particular, an interesting challenge for me was to create a typeface for signage, for a medium other than paper. Unlike typefaces designed for small sizes, for poor quality paper and printing, which together push the designer to reinforce certain parts of letterforms, typeface characters made for signage need to be cleaner and more minimal in their form. A purity of expression is needed. Book typefaces from the Renaissance remain our current archetype for most fonts created with paper as a final medium in mind. For signage, the purity of the Greek and Roman inscriptions seems more historically suitable. Their open counters, proportions, simplicity— in the case of Greek capitals—need to be followed when designing typefaces for monumental inscriptions.

¬ key letters compared between helvetica neue bold condensed at 90% and parisine at 100%.

147

148

parigi

parigi

Design Brief Let us return to the facts. In France, place names (particularly those from the Paris Métro) are in capitals only, in the majority of instances. In the early seventies, Adrian Frutiger was asked to design a special variation of his Univers typeface. His recommendation was to stick to capitals only to fit better with existing signage.

At the same time, he designed Roissy (a preliminary version of the typeface called Frutiger). Several decades later, the RATP started on a new concept for a signage system. Caps and lowercase in combination, which provide better word shapes and contrast, was adopted to improve legibility. For this new signage project, which was intended to be applied to all the transportation systems of the French capital, a typeface family was needed. After several proposals, including one by Frutiger, the RATP president decided that the creative team needed to select one of the typeface families already used by the RATP. Métro, the Adrian Frutiger all-caps face based on Univers; RER, Albert Boton’s thin, rounded, all-caps face designed specifically for the new fast Métro in the seventies; Gill Sans, used in recent years for official communication; Neue Helvetica, used for the bus signage system. Circa 1995, Neue Helvetica was selected, logically, because of its large availability and compatibility with various computer platforms. This advantage ultimately produced the opposite result, because of the variety of different versions of Helvetica understood as the same face by potential users who tried to select an identical typeface, but mistakenly used Helvetica instead of Neue Helvetica. Because of the various widths, weights, and letterforms, the corporate guidelines have never been successfully implemented—the different players came from very different areas. When we refer to Helvetica, to a nonprofessional of typography, they don’t see the subtlety, nor comprehend the consequence, of choosing the wrong version.

Why a specific typeface?

The people in charge of the signage system quickly understood that Neue Helvetica didn’t work well because of its width and standard spacing: the name of the station “Champs-Élysées Clémenceau” is obviously longer than the station name “Nation.” Historically, the name plates were sized in accordance with the length of the station’s name more than anything else. In stations where much information had to be displayed (various connections and ways out), the name plate was larger than in stations where not much information was needed.

149

The new modular system permitted only a modest level of adaptation of the size of the name plates: a real problem in any Latin country that stubbornly resists standardization.

parigi

Characteristics Due to the problems described above came the idea for a specific RATP typeface with certain Helvetica characteristics, more economical in width, but with the same legibility. Parisine was born circa 1996, designed from Helvetica Bold, condensed at 90%.

Parisine is intentionally more open to counteract the reduction of the areas of the counters due to condensing.

Its forms are softer and more round, horizontal parts are slightly heavier, optically, to compensate for the verticality accentuated by the slight narrowness of Parisine.

The specific forms of each character has been carefully optimised to differentiate each from the others, uniformly, to maintain the overall color of the typeface. The counter of the ‘o’ doesn’t repeat itself in other characters, like in Helvetica or Frutiger. Hence, the counters of the ‘b, d, o, p, q’ are all different compared to one another.

The ‘g’ is more peculiar, in deference to Edward Johnston’s typeface from the London Underground.

The ‘f”and ‘t’ are more wide than usual to constrain the verticality of the typeface. The ‘R’ has a strong diagonal tail, to help distinguish it from the ‘B,’ etc.

Also, the capitals are designed to be more heavy than today’s norm to affirm the words set in all uppercase.

Their proportions, based on Roman inscriptions, are quite large compared to the lowercase letters. Figures are also designed to be somewhat wide and open, to improve the legibility—they are used a lot for Métro and bus line references. This first version appeared only in two series, a bold and its italic, because of the signage system needed. The main use of italics is for translations and tourist information. Its forms came from its use.

More condensed, more cursive, and lighter, are the main characteristics. When designing an italic, 2 options are possible: The simple slanted form was not selected because of its lacking contrast to the roman. At the same time, the true italic form has a major problem with any ‘a’ that quickly can be mistaken for an ‘o.’ Without completely resolving the problem, the ending stroke helps its visibility. The ‘e’ is more round, like in serifed italics. After some tests, the ‘f’ was designed without is usual descender that we find in traditional serifed forms— too cursive for use at large sizes.

150

ÂŹ the final form is not identical for light and bold versions.

parigi

ÂŹ all the weights together.

151

parigi

¬ use of parisine for RATP signages.

¬ note that the text “chevreuses” fit perfectly because of a narrow width.

¬ note that the text “chevreuses” (red dot) is going far on the right.

152

parigi

A first conclusion In 1999, despite the fact that the new typeface was not broadly used (mainly for budgetary concerns) only true new lines, stations, such as the 14 line, opened for the “Mundial Football Cup� benefited from the new signage set in Parisine. But the RATP signage team started to use Parisine for other purposes successfully, such as maps. This proved that the users had begun to appropriate the new typeface for alternative tasks.

So, the need for a bigger family began. The map team asked for a Regular and Italic in addition to the Bold and Bold Italic.

Extended family My 1996 dream: a big family for a broad range of communication and information material for the RATP. I proposed a 6-weight family with companion italics.

After several discussions, during which time I explained that more weights would soon be a necessity.

For instance, Extra Bold and Light, quite important for the hierarchy in maps and any other broad use of a family which becomes an important element of any global identity. My next step was to propose a budget for this project. I prepared two quotations: the first, more expensive than usual, for a regular and a corresponding italic; and the second, less expensive than usual, for a six-weight family. My objective was indeed to give the RATP a financial incentive to adopt the second solution.

It has taken 6 months to design this new series and to redesign the existing ones. As usual theses days, thanks to typeface interpolation software, only extreme weights were designed, together with the Bold in the middle.

The old Bold quickly became a big problem when I started to create all intermediate weights. Many trials and mistakes helped me adjust the weights of each series. To date, I continue to prefer Fontographer 4.1, for its speed on new computers, its ability to clean up early forms easily, its metrics and kerning assistance functionalities. But, quickly it became very old when moving to tedious things, such as the need for different x and y interpolation percentages, global control of IDs, copyrights, encoding, hinting. Robofog and FontLab are more up-to-date for such things: Robofog because of scripting, FontLab because it’s the only software able to build professional master fonts for MacOS and Windows. This last aspect is a key, as RATP uses different systems depending on the use and users, so a project can start in Adobe Illustrator for the Mac and finish in Freehand on the PC. The naming issues, because 153

of cross platform compatibility, were resolved by 3 subfamily naming systems: Parisine Clair, Parisine, Parisine Sombre—each of them including 4 basic series, Regular, Italic, Bold, Bold Italic.

parigi

Today, the typeface family is available for the public in all of its versions. But, strange as it is for me, the Parisine ‘standard’ became the most successful of my typeface families. I say strange because I always questioned myself about the novelty of it. Why Parisine is so appreciated, perhaps because it’s a synthesis between a Germanic Helvetica and a too Latin style of its creator?

154

parigi

http://stbride.org/friends/conference/hiddentypography/parisine.html

155

parigi

In the early days, a number of commercial companies ran the different Métro lines. This is one of the reasons that the inscriptions varied enormously, from enamel signage to big ceramic station nameplates. Sans serifs were mostly used for big signage, and on the carriages, letters were painted in a style appropriate to the carriage design. Early on, it was Art Nouveau forms. At the time, most of the transportation process was done manually by rail workers, from the sale of individual tickets, to the semi-automatic door closing. Later, the national rail network, the RATP, took over.

It was not before the sixties, however, that the overall signage question was taken into account by the RATP. After the Second World War, at the time of the industrial boom and automisation, the network was extended into the surburbs and signage became a key factor.

The situation was similar for buses. Most of the direction signs on both sides of the buses were done by lettering artists, always in caps, in various condensed sans serifs.

This method was used on the buses until the end of the seventies, when Helvetica was chosen as to replace these methods.

In the early seventies, the RATP set up a study group, including Swiss type designer Adrian Frutiger.

He was asked to design a ‘special variation’ of his Univers typeface. The variant was introduced in 1973 to replace the twenty alphabets previously in use by the network. Later, Frutiger wrote: ‘It is the special charm of the Paris Métro that its applied aesthetics are not stamped with a uniform style. Forms of expression of the past hundred years, such as the beautiful Art Nouveau portals, are in many cases still present.

This variety should be preserved as well as possible, as an enrichment of the scene. The joining together of thical elements into a new harmonious order was a task requiring a certain degree of restraint so far as the creation of new forms was concerned.’

His recommendation was to stick to capitals to fit better with existing signs and with the historical roots of the Métro. The new alphabet was used only when the text needed to be updated or the station renovated. Soon after, around 1973 to 1975, Frutiger’s Roissy, a preliminary version of the typeface called Frutiger, was created for the new Aeroport Charles de Gaulle.

This time, without historical constraints, he used caps and lowercase instead of the all caps RATP alphabet.

Frutiger wrote: ‘We rejected an elongated condensed face because of its loss of legibility.

156

parigi

ÂŹ parisine (black) versus helvetica (white).

ÂŹ parisine sign.

ÂŹ helvetica sign.

157

parigi

The similarity of the shapes of all letters, due to central vertical lengthening, has an unfavourable effect.’

I remember clearly from my childhood the strikingly contemporary effect of the new airport with its signage on yellow.

It was not until the early nineties that the RATP started to move towards using caps and lowercase signage concepts, which provide better word shapes and contrast. This formula was adopted to improve legibility.

For future signage, which was intended to be applied to all the transportation systems, from the Métro to buses in the French capital, a typeface family was needed.

The RATP president decided to select from one of the typeface families already in used by the RATP. These included the Adrian Frutiger all-caps face based on Univers, the RER, Albert Boton’s thin, rounded, all-caps face designed specifically for the new fast Métro in the late seventies, Gill Sans, used in recent years for corporate identity and official communication, and Neue Helvetica, chosen by designer Jean Widmer, which was used for bus signage system from 1994.

Neue Helvetica was selected because of its general availability and compatibility with various computer programmes. This seeming advantage actually produced problems. Potential users mistakenly used Helvetica instead of Neue Helvetica. Because of the various widths, weights, and letterforms, the corporate guidelines have never been successfully implemented.

Early on in the testing process, the people involved came from very different areas. (The signage, from basic stickers to illuminated boxes or classic enamels metal plates needed a range of production methods.) Nontypographers could not comprehend the consequence of choosing the wrong version.

In his Essay on typography, which compared two type displays, one in square narrow heavy letters, the other in purely ‘Gillesque’ caps, Eric Gill wrote: ‘A return to mere legibility seems desirable even if the effect be less striking. To this end it is necessary to study the principles of legibility; the characters which distinguish one letter from another, the proportion of light and darkin letters and spacing.’ Later on, he wrote: ‘Many engineers affect this style of letter, believing it to be devoid of that ‘art-nonsense’ on the absence of which they pride themselves.’ The style of letter to which he refers is close to what Helvetica represents, to my eyes. I have thought for a long time about this idea of contrast that helps legibility. Humanity is the key when you design typefaces, and this is particularly true for public signage, where no 158

parigi

special marketing effect is nee, just a service to the public.

Type designer Ladislas Mandel perceives typefaces as cultural items, writing: ‘Our first glance of any written work is always cultural. If the perceived forms are contained in our cultural references, we recognise them, we ‘own’ them like the reflection of our own image and we open large the doors to their intelligence.’

With Gill, Mandel and Frutiger share a concern for the act of perception as a key factor.

159

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://www.amtuir.org/04_index_htu_metro.htm http://www.mic-ro.com/metro/metrofonts.html http://www.typofonderie.com/gazette/articles/parisine http://www.stbride.org/friends/conference/hiddentypography/ parisine.html

2008 Tokyo Unknown

tokyo

progetto grafico, n.18, settembre 2010. pp. 66-67.

163

tokyo

ÂŹ tokyo railway system. progetto realizzato dallo studio zeroperzero, 2008.

164

165

tokyo

tokyo

http://zeroperzero.com/crs/crs.html

166

City Railway System The subway line map is a symbol of the variable city.

The railway is the easiest means of transportation for tourists who are unfamiliar to the city. Every city has different numbers and structures of line and the railway system that has been constructed for ages reflects the character of the variable city, that is why the subway line map is the symbol of city.

The line map is simplified and modified for easy information communication and it is different from a map on a real reduced scale.

So I thought it is possible to infuse the character of the city into the line map with such course of simplification and modification. By means of line map design following the character and identity of the city, we can easily communicate with tourist with the expression of the city and its character by aiming to develop a total tourism system with service that targets tourism through line map design.

1.Tokyo Railway Tokyo owns the most number of railways of any kind, including subway, lightrail, monorail, etc, with more than 1500 stations that covers the metropolitan area. Places in the center of the city is the Imperial Palace, the residence of the current Ten-no (Japanese Emperor). Subway lines circumvent the expansive ground claimed by the Imperial Palace. This characteristic is visualized in this map by the concentric circles spreading out to the entire city, with the center in the Imperial Palace ground. This strong presentation of circles reminds the national flag of Japan and the Japanese identity expressed in the flag.

tokyo

2.Seoul Railway Seoul boasts 600 years of history as the capital of the nation and Han Gang, a river of grand size that is hard to find to flow across in any major city. Han River is the symbol of Seoul. Representation of Han River in this map mimics the curvature in the middle of the Tae-Geuk mark of the national flag of Korea. The overall circular shape of the map was also inspired by the Tae-Geuk mark. The brighter area in the center of the map, seen up close in the detail shot 1, shows the territory of Han Yang, the old capital of Cho-Sun Dynasty. This was the old Seoul marked by the Four Gates, and the growth of the city becomes clear when compared to the modern metropolitan.

167

3.Osaka Railway Osaka is closely tied to the surrounding cities of Kyoto, Kobe, Nara, and Wakayama. Many people traveling to Osaka also visit the neighboring cities. We connected this concept with octopus as the main ingredient of Takoyaki (Tako in Japanese), the dish Osaka is known for. In this map, Osaka metropolitan is visualized as an octopus with the head being Osaka and the legs sprawling out to the other four cities.

tokyo

ÂŹ tokyo railway. ÂŹ osaka railway.

168

tokyo

http://bartman905.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/tokyo-subway-manner-posters/

169

tokyo

Tokyo’s subway is a microcosm of Japanese society itself: congestion, maximum use of minimum space, state-of-the-art technology, good and bad manners (a future post on subway “manner” posters soon), cleanliness, suicides, endless announcements and business opportunities — the subway has it all.

Although initially daunting, using the Tokyo subway system is not as difficult as it looks, especially since most signs and ticket machines are also written and available in English. Below are pictures of some typical signs you will see everyday using the Tokyo subway system.

Is it readable to you?

Even though Tokyo subways are generally very crowded, I haven’t observed much bumping or rude behavior at all, and the trains and stations are also quite clean.

Tokyo Metro launched a series of ads this year to remind subway riders of “manners”. Every month, a new manner poster is displayed on all subway stations. The latest reflects the current autumn weather (although I have no idea why they have snow in the poster at this time of the year) and the Japanese love for the game of golf. Notice again, the English text in the poster.

170

171

tokyo

172

tokyo

tokyo

 utilizzare il sistema della metropolitana di tokyo non è cosÏ difficile come sembra, soprattutto perchÊ la maggior parte delle informazioni sono fornite anche in lingua inglese.

173

tokyo

l’arca, 158, aprile 2001. pp. 78, 79

174

interna delle superfici in vetro e in alcune parti della colonne e delle parteti per permettere una migliore leggibilità con il mezzo in movimento. nei soffitti è stata riprodotta la web frame da cui il

progetto si è generato, mentre in alcune parti delle pareti sono state inseriti blocchi modellati in braille, della segnaletica metropolitana, come opere d’arte.

tokyo

¬ gli interni della stazione sono stati fatti per ottimizzare la luce disponibile: per questo è stato applicato uno strato di materiale acrilico fosforescente che conduce luce dall’esterno nella parte

175

tokyo

http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2010/12/02/foto/metropolitana_di_tokyo_torna_di_moda_il_ bon_ton-9761648/1/

176

tokyo

Buone maniere e metropolitana, un decalogo che suggerisce comportamenti e bon ton non è mai fuori moda. In particolare se parliamo della metropolitana di Tokyo dove da anni celebri cartelloni dalla grafica accattivante consigliano ai passeggeri come comportarsi una volta a bordo.

In questa galleria è presente una raccolta dei piÚ originali apparsi nei vagoni giapponesi dal 1976 al 1982: da Marilyn Monroe che suggerisce di non dimenticare l'ombrello, a Superman che consiglia di non gettare chewin gum in terra.

177

tokyo

ÂŹ cartelloni pubblicitari apparsi nei vagoni giapponesi dal 1976 al 1982, in cui si consiglia ai passeggieri il comportamento corretto da tenere.

178

179

tokyo

180

tokyo

BIBLIOGRAFIA di sezione

L’arca, 158, aprile 2001, pp. 78-79.

Progetto Grafico, 18, settembre 2010, pp. 66-67.

SITOGRAFIA di sezione

http://bartman905.wordpress.com/2008/11/21/tokyo-subwaymanner-posters/ http://www.beroad.it/post/2737/tokyo-metro-regole http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2010/12/02/foto/metropolitana_ di_tokyo_torna_di_moda_il_bon_ton-9761648/1/ http://zeroperzero.com/

BIBLIOGRAFIA in ordine alfabetico per titolo

Abecedario. La grafica del Novecento, Sergio Polano, Pierpaolo Vetta, Milano, Electa 2002.

Abitare, n.196, luglio/agosto 1981.

Area, n.109, marzo/aprile 2010.

183

Bob Noorda, una vita nel segno della grafica, Francesco Dondina, Milano, Editrice San Raffaele, 2009.

Design Vignelli, Germano Celant, Milano, Rizzoli, 1990.

Domus, n.868, marzo 2004.

184

Domus, n.4, giugno, 1996

Helvetica and the New York City Subway System, Paul Shaw, Cambridge, MIT Press, 2011.

La stazione della metropolitana Krรถpke a Hannover, Massimo Iosa Ghini, Milano, Electa, 2000.

185

L’Arca, n.158, aprile 2001.

Metros In Frankreich: Paris, Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Toulouse, Rennes und Rouen, C. Groneck, Schwandl, Robert Verlag, 2006.

On the road. Bob Noorda, Cinzia Ferrara, Milano, Aiap Edizioni, 2011.

186

Progetto grafico, 18, settembre 2010.

Segnali. Grafica urbana e territoriale, Phil Baines e Catherine Dixon, Modena, Logos, 2004.

Sussidiario. Grafica e caratteri moderni, Sergio Polano, Pierpaolo Vetta, Milano, Electa, 2010.

187

Unimark International, Jan Conradi, Lars M端ller Publisher, 2009.

Vignelli From A to Z, Massimo Vignelli, Images Publishing, 2007.

188

SITOGRAFIA

http://www.abitare.it/it/featured/ addio-alla-metropolitana-milanese/

http://www.amtuir.org/04_index_ htu_metro.htm

http://www.articolista.com/artee-cultura/cera-una-volta-unasegnaletica-della-metropolitanamilanese.html

http://www.abitare.it/it/ architecture/riuso-del-moderno-02metro-milano-ciao-ciao/

189

http://bartman905.wordpress. com/2008/11/21/tokyo-subwaymanner-posters/

http://www.beroad.it/post/2737/ tokyo-metro-regole

http://blog.giofugatype.com

http://www.casaluci. com/?tag=graphic-design

190

http://www.designerblog.it/ galleria/massimo-vignelli-nellametropolitana-di-new-york/

http://designmuseum.org/design/ frank-pick

http://www.domusweb.it/it/design/ addio-a-bob-noorda/

http://www.domusweb.it/it/design/ ricordando-bob-noorda/

191

http://www.educational.rai.it/ lezionididesign/designers/noordab. htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ New_York_City_Subway

http://www.en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Tube_map

http://.floornature.it/progettiinfrastrutture/progettomassimo-iosa-ghini-stazione-dihannover-4329/

192

http://harlequingraphic.wordpress. com/2011/04/11/down-below-thestreet-helvetica-and-the-new-yorkcity-subway-system/

http://issuu.com/enricamasi/docs/ inarea_tesi_atm_milano

http://issuu.com/oblique/docs/bobnoorda_giornali#download

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

193

http://mic-ro.com/metro/metrofonts. html

http://www.ministerodellagrafica. org

http://www.oblique.it/manifesto_ noorda.html

http://www.repubblica.it/ esteri/2010/12/02/foto/ metropolitana_di_tokyo_torna_di_ moda_il_bon_ton-9761648/1/

194

http://stbride.org/friends/ conference/hiddentypography/ parisine.html

http://soundlandscapes. wordpress.com/tag/hectorguimard/

http://www.thisisdisplay.org/ features/Massimo_Vignelli_on_ Bob_Noorda/

http://www.typofonderie.com/ gazette/articles/parisine

195

http://warofyesterday.blogspot. com/2010/02/subway-map-i.html

http://zeroperzero.com/

196

Progetto editoriale realizzato e curato da Aura Masciopinto Silvia Schiavo Docente Leonardo Sonnoli Assistenti Thomas Bisiani Gabriele Toneguzzi Caratteri utilizzati Trade Gothic LT sdt Helvetica Neue LT sdt Stampato da Tipolitografia Pavan, Vicenza su carta Favini, 90 gr Rilegato da Rilegatoria Riva, Vicenza

Laboratorio di Comunicazione Corso di Laurea in Design e Arti UniversitĂ IUAV di Venezia A.A. 2011/2012