Additional NYC Subway Route Bullets

[CenSin]

We need extra bullets for discussing past and/or future NYC subway routes. I don't think the current set covers all the different topics that get discussed here. For the sake of consistency, it's better to have bullet icons (even if unofficial) then bullet icons and words in the same sentence. Examples:

There needs to be an and diamond A.

 

There needs to be an and <A>.

The <A> did exist historically (found on older subway maps)—maybe even before the .

[Guest Lance]

Continuing that line of thought, there's also the Nassau M and the Broadway B/D, which I believe were available on the old site, but are absent today.

[Harry]

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I will gladly make any additional bullets available as long as someone creates them.

[CenSin]

Continuing that line of thought, there's also the Nassau M and the Broadway B/D, which I believe were available on the old site, but are absent today.

About that, I was quite shocked that the bullet was changed in color only. That had the effect of retroactively changing all posts about the brown M to an orange M. It should have been kept with a new string of text for the orange M.

 

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I will gladly make any additional bullets available as long as someone creates them.

The work should be simple, but someone has to tell me where the old icons came from. If I simply create new ones from scratch, that deviates from the "style." At small sizes, it's more of a challenge to copy the color accurately given the anti-aliasing. Or I could solve the whole problem by replacing the current set entirely with the set I have on my computer. I've got it done already.

it's better to have bullet icons (even if unofficial) then bullet icons and words in the same sentence.

Grammar Nazi correction:

it's better to have bullet icons (even if unofficial) than bullet icons and words in the same sentence.

[CenSin]

Does anyone want to suggest bullets? I made a bunch from years ago and some of them are probably never going to be used (blue diamond Z).

[Around the Horn]

Here is the diamond A:

[GreeneggsnPelham]

How are we able to create the bullets and have them show up like @Around the Horn? I have the subway bullet font that Peter Dougherty uses in his track book, so I wouldn't mind making a full set of bullets with any route/color/etc for you guys. PM me or respond to this thread @CenSin, @Lance, or anyone else who is interested.

 

-A 

[Around the Horn]

I took the bullet in Paint and filled in Purple...

[Lance]

@Around the Horn: I think GreenEggsandPelham was talking about the diamond A in your post, not the purple 9 avatar.

 

@Harry: What size, format do you need the bullets to be in?

[GreeneggsnPelham]

@Lance: Yes, I was referencing the diamond . 

 

I am up to creating the full alpha-letter scheme in all of the available MTA colors. Once finished, do I send them to you or Harry for finalization?

 

-A 

[Harry]

@Harry: What size, format do you need the bullets to be in?

 

Lance use the current bullets as a reference.  They are 16x16 pixels.

[mediccjh]

I'll take a yellow , a la 1979. Those double-letters should be available too. (AA)

[CenSin]

A word of advice from a graphics designer:

• Strive for canonicity. Although the MTA is not very consistent with the font or proportions of their bullets, use the roll signs on the R32s as a starting point.
• Bullets should be no taller than the line height of the text it is to be used within. The bounding box for the diamond bullets should be about an eight bigger than the bounding box for the circle bullets. On this forum, it means the circle bullets will be 14×14 centered within a 16×16 canvas while the diamond bullets will be 16×16. For best results, align everything to a 32×32 grid before rasterizing.
• Check the width of before you work on the other letters and use it to properly proportion your font and bullet size.
• Base the glyphs of never-before-used letters on similar letters that have been or are currently in use. (P), for example, would be designed based on the . That's not to suggest using the as a starting point, but to use the as a yardstick for measuring how the (P) should appear.
• When in doubt about the font, check the glyphs for , , and . The (O), for example, would be based on whatever font contains the correct glyph for . This makes the letter forms more consistent across letters. Again, while the MTA uses many variants of and , consider the R32 forms as "official."
• Sometimes you will have to graft parts from other letters or make adjustments to make the stroke widths consistent across all letters.
• The Akzidenz-Grotesk and Helvetica family of fonts approximate the bullet fonts best, but beware of the , , and !

[Lance]

Thanks Harry. I'll take care of this by the end of the day since I already have the bullets made and available since I've been using them for signature requests. Also, thanks to both mediccjh and CenSin for the suggestions and advice respectively.

[CenSin]

I believe the MTA also specifies their bullet colors using PANTONE. It standardizes the color across different media (screen, paper, etc.).

Ben Kabak might've done an article on the official color specifications on Second Avenue Sagas.

[Lance]

Again, thanks for the input. I've tried to get the colors as accurate as possible with the info from the MTA.

 

On that thought, I did all of the route bullets found on old maps and the rollsigns from the mid 1980s to the present. The double lettered and '70s route bullets will be posted in a later update. By the way, I made both 16 pixel and 20 pixel versions of each bullet in case the sizes are off either way.

 

http://www.mediafire.com/download/1o38c5zn37cqxsc/NYCTF+bullets.7z

[CenSin]

The .sizes are off. Since it was mentioned that the line height of the forum text is normally 16px, the diamond bullets have to be paired with its smaller circle counterparts. In your set, the 16×16 circle bullets are fine, but the diamond counterparts that go with them are 20×20. Once I go over my previous work, I'm going to release a set of bullets (sans color). They will span the alphabet from A to Z, 1 to 0, and an airplane. (I'm not too familiar with the metrics of the double-letter bullets) Expect something this week.

[Gong Gahou]

I have a question for you guys: what is your opinion on wider numbers?

 

Would you prefer this:

 

 

or would you prefer with what we already have?

 

I am currently recreating the "old" Helvetica font, so if you guys prefer that over the current Helvetica then I will try to devote some time to creating bullets.

[CenSin]

I'm almost done with the letters/numbers. I have the diamond and circle bullets in all the different colors already. I'll post when I have them all done.

Double-letters will come later. If anyone has a high-resolution photo of something with double-letters (preferrably not at an angle), please post. I don't know the spacing between letters and if they even use the same font.

I have a question for you guys: what is your opinion on wider numbers?

 

Would you prefer this:

 

 

or would you prefer with what we already have?

 

I am currently recreating the "old" Helvetica font, so if you guys prefer that over the current Helvetica then I will try to devote some time to creating bullets.

What we already have looks the most like what the MTA uses.

[CenSin]

OK. How do I attach files here?

[Gong Gahou]

I'm almost done with the letters/numbers. I have the diamond and circle bullets in all the different colors already. I'll post when I have them all done.

 

Double-letters will come later. If anyone has a high-resolution photo of something with double-letters (preferrably not at an angle), please post. I don't know the spacing between letters and if they even use the same font.

 

What we already have looks the most like what the MTA uses.

 

That depends on what you mean by "what the MTA uses", because in the case of station signage that is not correct (for the most part). But I believe I understand what you mean, and I will agree with you on that.

 

OK. How do I attach files here?

 

You could try uploading it to the Downloads section and then "attach" it to a post here via My Media. I don't know what the result would be, as I have never uploaded any files to the community. But I did test this feature with two pictures I uploaded, and I guess the results should be something similar to that.

 

Alternatively you can do what Lance did - upload them to MediaFire and then place the links here.

[CenSin]

You could try uploading it to the Downloads section and then "attach" it to a post here via My Media. I don't know what the result would be, as I have never uploaded any files to the community. But I did test this feature with two pictures I uploaded, and I guess the results should be something similar to that.

 

Alternatively you can do what Lance did - upload them to MediaFire and then place the links here.

The downloads section is for maps, not tiny bullets. Also, I would rather not have files here and there on the web linked from NYCTF. A lot of times, files disappear and then the person reading the thread has no file to refer to. It's best if NYCTF itself hosted the files.

[Gong Gahou]

The downloads section is for maps, not tiny bullets.

That's not true. The Downloads section hasn't been a place to upload only maps. Even the earliest files uploaded there weren't maps. If you take a look at the Downloads section now, you'll see that there is a section titled "Graphics" - which would pretty much be the right category for what you're making. I didn't reply before about this because at that time the only section that wasn't map-related was called "Transit Avatars and Icons", which I didn't feel was a proper category to upload your tiny bullets.

 

 

Double-letters will come later. If anyone has a high-resolution photo of something with double-letters (preferrably not at an angle), please post. I don't know the spacing between letters and if they even use the same font.

I forgot to answer this in one of my previous posts.

 

Here is a photo of a page in the 1970 Graphics Standards Manual that lists all the bullets used. Credit goes to Paul Shaw for scanning this page.

 

 

 

If that's not good enough, high-resolution pictures of all individual bullets can be found at the site that serves to archive every single page of the manual. (Many thanks to those people; I have always wondered how the manual looked like!)

 

By the way, Basic Commercial/the current Akzidenz-Grotesk font is not the same exact font used in the manual. (Basic Commercial is Linotype's own rendering of the current Akzidenz-Grotesk.) The most notable difference is that the former has numbers that are narrower, similar to current Helvetica. The font you see in the manual is very similar to old Helvetica in that both are earlier versions and have wider numbers..