{"id":1787955,"date":"2019-10-29T09:38:01","date_gmt":"2019-10-29T13:38:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/?p=1787955"},"modified":"2019-10-29T09:42:11","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T13:42:11","slug":"out-today-airline-maps","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/10\/out-today-airline-maps\/","title":{"rendered":"Out Today: Airline Maps"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Airline<\/a><\/p>\n

Out today: Airline Maps: A Century of Art and Design<\/em><\/strong><\/a> (Particular Books<\/a>\/Penguin<\/a>), Mark Ovenden and Maxwell Roberts\u2019s book about the history of the airline map\u2014those maps showing where an airline flies that you often see in in-flight magazines.<\/p>\n

Hundreds of images span a century of passenger flight, from the rudimentary trajectory of routes to the most intricately detailed birds-eye views of the land to be flown over. Advertisements for the first scheduled commercial passenger flights featured only a few destinations, with stunning views of the countryside and graphics of biplanes. As aviation took off, speed and mileage were trumpeted on bold posters featuring busy routes. Major airlines produced highly stylized illustrations of their global presence, establishing now-classic brands. With trendy and forward-looking designs, cartographers celebrated the coming together of different cultures and made the earth look ever smaller.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

CityLab<\/em> has an interview<\/a> with Ovenden and Roberts about their book. One exchange stuck out:<\/p>\n

But some of the maps in the book are really geometric and straightforward, like transit maps. I\u2019m wondering, how are these airlines dealing with some of the problems of transit maps? For instance, how do you get a lot of lines to a central station, or a hub in terms of air travel?<\/strong><\/p>\n

Roberts: I\u2019m not sure that they do. I\u2019ve actually looked closely at a lot of these airline maps and tried to get my head around them, and actually some make no sense at all. They\u2019re essentially unusable. And that\u2019s the big irony with airline maps: Nobody\u2019s ever used an airline map to plan a journey.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It seems to me that this is because airline maps aren\u2019t transit maps, they\u2019re pictorial maps<\/a>. Pictorial maps were about promotion and decoration, not navigation.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Ovenden is known to us here at The Map Room: he\u2019s published books about transit map design such as Transit Maps of the World<\/em><\/a> (2007, updated 2015), Paris Underground<\/em><\/a> (2009) and (Great) Railway Maps of the World<\/em><\/a> (2012). Roberts is the author of Underground Maps After Beck<\/em><\/a> (2005) and Underground Maps Unravelled<\/em><\/a> (2017). Taking to the air is a bit of departure for both authors, then.<\/p>\n

For another book on this subject, see Paul Jarvis\u2019s Mapping the Airways<\/em><\/a>, which came out in 2016 (previously<\/a>).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Out today: Airline Maps: A Century of Art and Design (Particular Books\/Penguin), Mark Ovenden and Maxwell Roberts\u2019s book about the history of the airline map\u2014those maps showing where an airline flies that you often see… More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"link","meta":{"autoblue_enabled":true,"autoblue_custom_message":"","autoblue_shares":[],"autoblue_post_url":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[453],"tags":[30],"class_list":["post-1787955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-link","hentry","category-aviation","tag-books","post_format-post-format-link"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1788091,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2019\/11\/2019-holiday-gift-guide\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787955,"position":0},"title":"2019 Holiday Gift Guide","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"27 November 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"Every year at about this time I post a gift guide that lists some of the noteworthy books about maps that have been published this year. If you have a map-obsessed person in your life and would like to give them something map-related\u2014or you are a map-obsessed person and would\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Gift Guides"","block_context":{"text":"Gift Guides","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/gift-guides\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/charles-booth-london-poverty-maps-oblique-99x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/charles-booth-london-poverty-maps-oblique-99x150.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/charles-booth-london-poverty-maps-oblique-99x150.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/charles-booth-london-poverty-maps-oblique-99x150.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1818989,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2023\/10\/harry-beck-takes-to-the-air\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787955,"position":1},"title":"Harry Beck Takes to the Air","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"4 October 2023","format":"link","excerpt":"So it turns out Harry Beck also did airline route maps. You will be shocked to discover what form those maps took. [MeFi]","rel":"","context":"In "Aviation"","block_context":{"text":"Aviation","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/aviation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1789361,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/09\/underground-cities\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787955,"position":2},"title":"Underground Cities","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"30 September 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Mark Ovenden has made a career of publishing books about transportation systems and their maps that are both comprehensive and copiously illustrated. These include books about transit maps, railway maps and airline maps, as well as books about specific transit systems like the London Underground and the Paris Metro. His\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Book Reviews"","block_context":{"text":"Book Reviews","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/book-reviews\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/09\/underground-cities-final-245x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1785616,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/05\/daniel-huffmans-root-and-branch-airline-route-map\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787955,"position":3},"title":"Daniel Huffman’s “Root-and-Branch” Airline Route Map","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"17 May 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"Daniel Huffman had the opportunity to redesign an airline's route map for their in-flight magazine. He came up with the above design, which in the end the client decided against, but he talks about how he came up with it in this blog post. He calls it a cartogram, because\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Aviation"","block_context":{"text":"Aviation","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/aviation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/huffman-flight-map-1024x593.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/huffman-flight-map-1024x593.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/huffman-flight-map-1024x593.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/huffman-flight-map-1024x593.jpg?resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1785275,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2018\/04\/314-rare-books-and-maps-stolen-from-carnegie-library-of-pittsburgh\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787955,"position":4},"title":"314 Rare Books and Maps Stolen from Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"3 April 2018","format":"link","excerpt":"In April 2017, the Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh made a shocking discovery in the course of a routine insurance appraisal of its rare book holdings in the library's main\u00a0Oakland branch:\u00a0some 314 rare books, folios, maps and plates were missing. News of the thefts was finally made public last month: see\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Antique Maps"","block_context":{"text":"Antique Maps","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/antique-maps\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1788753,"url":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/2020\/04\/the-magnificent-maps-puzzle-book\/","url_meta":{"origin":1787955,"position":5},"title":"The Magnificent Maps Puzzle Book","author":"Jonathan Crowe","date":"16 April 2020","format":"link","excerpt":"I missed Philip Parker\u2019s Magnificent Maps Puzzle Book when it came out in Britain from British Library Publishing last October, but it seems to be available in North America this month (the logistics of delivering physical books during a pandemic permitting). From the publisher: \u201cIt features carefully devised questions inspired\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Games"","block_context":{"text":"Games","link":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/category\/games\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The Magnificent Maps Puzzle Book (cover)","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.maproomblog.com\/xq\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/04\/magnificent-maps-puzzle-book-195x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1787955"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787955\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1787959,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1787955\/revisions\/1787959"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1787955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1787955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.maproomblog.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1787955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}