Paris street, bus and metro atlas

Keith Tam
(in)visible (de)signs
1 min readMar 9, 2013

Here is a little gem from my collection — a very charming and well designed Paris street atlas. I bought this some years ago from a secondhand bookshop on Charing Cross Road in London. There is no date anywhere to be found in the book, but I’m guessing it is from the 60s or 70s. It’s in a handy format (92 × 132 mm) with 307 pages. The text pages are in black only, with a change in paper colour (blue) for the attractions directory. The maps at the back (a spread for each of the 20 arrondissements plus several other areas) are printed in five spot colours. A third of the pages is dedicated for an A–Z street directory, with alphabetical thumb tabs. The typography is very well considered, set mostly in Gill Sans light and bold with some long street names in a condensed grotesque to save space. One of the most interesting features of the guidebook is the comprehensive bus directory, with schematic maps of every bus route. The métro map is not in the typical Harry Beck-style, not exactly topographical but not quite a schematic either.

There are several of these for sale online that are in much better conditions than the one I have, and from different eras (seriously, for scrapbooking?!). I wonder if there are modern versions of these?

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Keith Tam
(in)visible (de)signs

Typographer, information designer, academic (Hong Kong Design Institute)