Where new design goes to blossom and lost design goes to live again.
Chris Burns on October 27, 2009 8:09 PM
The shortened path to this post is http://wfdj.us/hoany

Paris as a Star Map

Not the kind of star map that you use to find Steve Buscemi’s house, but the kind you use to find the “Artie” constellation. As the city of Paris is often or at least sometimes called La ville lumière aka City of Lights, the wonderful design mind that goes by the name Clémentine Tantet decided to see it in space. And what’s more identifying of a city than it’s train map? So thus is this: a map of the Paris Underground made into a map of the stars!

Re-identifying a map is a task that should be given to every design student at some point in their lives, and even more than one time if they’re up to it. Mapping and re-mapping are extremely basic skills that every designer, big and small, should have always. One must be able to identify the components of a system, map them in a way that makes them simplest to dissemble and understand. For realsies!

The light city | Poster: Paris has many nicknames but its most famous is «la ville-lumière» (literally «the light city»; most often translated as «the city of lights»). I decided to show it, representing the paris undergroung map like a stars map.

All images La ville lumière: © 2009 Clémentine Tantet

This post is part of the World Famous Design Junkies gridwork category.

so very close

very very close

12 Comments

  • Posted by Adam Norwood | 11.28.09

    Haha, the Artie constellation. Pipe!

    Nice map exercise — no matter its utility, it’s a beautiful reinterpretation.

  • Posted by Chris Burns | 11.28.09

    Haha! Pipe!

  • Posted by sonia | 03.07.10

    Lovely work – found this which is pretty interesting, again using subway map theme, but one of what a world subway map might look like: http://worldmetromap.blogspot.com/

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Categories: Bits, Blue, Brightness, Celebration, Charts, Conceptual, Custom Culture, Deconstruction, Environment, Ephemera, Gridwork, Identity, Outer Space, Posters
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