Airline Maps

A nostalgic and celebratory look back at one hundred years of passenger flight, featuring full-color reproductions of route maps and posters from the world’s most iconic airlines

In this gorgeously illustrated collection of airline route maps, Mark Ovenden and Maxwell Roberts look to the skies and transport readers to another time. 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.

Eventually, fleets got bigger and routes multiplied, and graphic designers have found creative new ways to display huge amounts of information. Airline hubs bring their own cultural mark and advertise their plentiful destination options. Innovative maps depict our busy world with webs of overlapping routes and networks of low-cost city-to-city hopping. But though flying has become more commonplace, Ovenden and Roberts remind us that early air travel was a glamorous affair for good reason. Airline Maps is a celebration of graphic design, cartographic skills and clever marketing, and a visual feast that reminds us to enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

Author Biography

Mark Ovenden is a British writer and broadcaster. At the age of seven, he travelled alone ten miles on the London Underground, armed only with a map. He later gained entry to a Graphic Design course by submitting a reworking of the London tube map. His previous books are Great Railway Maps of the World, Metro Maps of the World, Paris Metro Style and London Underground by Design. He is a Fellow of the Royal Geographic Society.

Maxwell Roberts has lectured at the University of Essex since 1993. His research interests now focus on information design and, in particular, schematic maps. He creates challenging designs and tests their usability and aesthetics. He has authored two books on maps including Underground Maps Unravelled. Designs have been exhibited in Germany, Austria, the USA, and the UK and he has given numerous public lectures, and interviews, including NPR and the BBC. His web page is www.tubemapcentral.com.