u/veenspace

Decided to tilt the entire grid by 9 degrees to anchor the design on the IC 27 line. I’m quite happy with how it turned out, especially in legibility and hierarchy. E.g every station name is horizontal and lines barely cross considering how intertwined the network is, and all text is in line with WCAG AA level of contrast (minimum 5:1). The contest also mentioned making the map accessible to people who don't know topographically where their station is, so I included a full station list and added a (slanted) grid underneath the map.

I also made the decision to separate out the network into three sub-networks: NS Intercity trains (dark blue), NS Sprinter trains (yellow) and other train operators (other colours). Each network is separated physically, so it's easy to jump around the map when you're following an intercity line. The interchange stations (“knooppunt”) are the places where it makes sense to change between any two of those three networks. (Although NS provided the list of what constitutes a "knooppunt", so there are some odd ones in there.)

It should also be pretty obvious that I’m heavily inspired by the 1972 and later Vignelli maps of NYC. I tried to make the 6 big stations stand out like the boroughs on that map, for example.

I’ll be heading to bed soon but I’ll come back tomorrow to answer your questions. :)