What I do is I organize information. I'm a graphic designer. Professionally, I try to make sense often of things that don't make much sense themselves.
Ja se bavim organizovanjem informacija. Ja sam grafički dizajner. U svom poslu pokušavam da napravim smisao od stvari koje često nemaju mnogo smisla. Tako da moj otac možda neće razumeti šta je to
So my father might not understand what it is that I do for a living. His part of my ancestry has been farmers. He's part of this ethnic minority called the Pontic Greeks. They lived in Asia Minor and fled to Greece after a genocide about a hundred years ago. And ever since that, migration has somewhat been a theme in my family. My father moved to Germany, studied there and married, and as a result, I now have this half-German brain, with all the analytical thinking and that slightly dorky demeanor that come with that. And of course it meant that I was a foreigner in both countries, and that of course made it pretty easy for me to migrate as well, in good family tradition, if you like.
što radim da zaradim za hleb. Moji preci sa njegove strane su bili zemljoradnici. On je pripadnik etničke manjine zvane pontski Grci. Živeli su u Maloj Aziji i pobegli su u Grčku nakon genocida pre oko sto godina i od tog trenutka, migracija je na neki način postala tema u mojoj porodici. Moj otac je emigrirao u Nemačku, tamo studirao i oženio se i kao rezultat toga ja sada imam polunemački mozak sa svim analitičkim mišljenjem i pomalo štreberskim stavom koji ide uz to. To je takođe značilo da sam stranac u obe zemlje, a to mi je naravno vrlo olakšalo da migriram, u dobroj porodičnoj tradiciji, da tako kažem.
But of course, most journeys that we undertake from day to day are within a city. And, especially if you know the city, getting from A to B may seem pretty obvious, right? But the question is, why is it obvious? How do we know where we're going?
Ali naravno, većina putovanja na koje se uputimo iz dana u dan su u okvirima grada, a naročito ako znate grad, doći od tačke A do tačke B izgleda prilično očigledno, zar ne? Ali pitanje je, zašto je to očigledno? Kako znamo kuda idemo?
So I washed up on a Dublin ferry port about 12 years ago, a professional foreigner, if you like, and I'm sure you've all had this experience before, yeah? You arrive in a new city, and your brain is trying to make sense of this new place. Once you find your base, your home, you start to build this cognitive map of your environment. It's essentially this virtual map that only exists in your brain. All animal species do it, even though we all use slightly different tools. Us humans, of course, we don't move around marking our territory by scent, like dogs. We don't run around emitting ultrasonic squeaks, like bats. We just don't do that, although a night in the Temple Bar district can get pretty wild.
Završio sam u Dablinskoj trajektnoj luci pre oko 12 godina, profesionalni stranac, da tako kažem, siguran sam da ste svi nekad imali ovo iskustvo, zar ne? Dođete u novi grad i vaš mozak pokušava da nađe neki smisao u ovom novom mestu. Kada nađete vašu bazu, vašu kuću, krenete da pravite kognitivnu mapu svog okruženja. To je u suštini virtuelna mapa koja postoji samo u vašem mozgu. Sve životinjske vrste to rade, iako svi koristimo blago drugačije alate. Mi ljudi naravno ne idemo unaokolo označavajući našu teritoriju mirisom, kao psi. Ne jurimo unaokolo praveći ultrazvučne piskove, kao slepi miševi. Jednostavno to ne radimo, iako u ulici punoj kafana zna da bude prilično ludo. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Ne, mi činimo dve važne stvari kako bismo neko mesto označili kao svoje.
No, we do two important things to make a place our own. First, we move along linear routes. Typically, we find a main street, and this main street becomes a linear strip map in our minds. But our mind keeps it pretty simple, yeah? Every street is generally perceived as a straight line, and we kind of ignore the little twists and turns that the streets make. When we do, however, make a turn into a side street, our mind tends to adjust that turn to a 90-degree angle. This of course makes for some funny moments when you're in some old city layout that follows some sort of circular city logic, yeah? Maybe you've had that experience as well.
Prvo, krećemo se pravolinijskim putanjama. Obično nađemo glavnu ulicu i onda ta glavna ulica postaje mentalna skica mape u našim mislima. Ali naš um ih pravi prilično jednostavnim, zar ne? Svaka ulica se obično doživljava kao prava linija i kao da ignorišemo mala vijuganja i skretanja koje ulica pravi. Međutim, kada skrenemo u sporednu ulicu, naš um teži da to skretanje pretvori u ugao od 90 stepeni. To naravno dovodi do smešnih trenutaka kada se nalazite u nekom starom gradu koji prati neku vrstu kružne logike grada, zar ne? Možda ste i vi već imali takvo iskustvo?
Let's say you're on some spot on a side street that projects from a main cathedral square, and you want to get to another point on a side street just like that. The cognitive map in your mind may tell you, "Aris, go back to the main cathedral square, take a 90-degree turn and walk down that other side street." But somehow you feel adventurous that day, and you suddenly discover that the two spots were actually only a single building apart. Now, I don't know about you, but I always feel like I find this wormhole or this inter-dimensional portal.
Recimo da se nalazite negde u sporednoj ulici koja se pruža od glavnog trga katedrale i želite da dođete do druge tačke na sporednoj ulici. Kognitivna mapa u vašem umu vam kaže: "Aris, idi nazad do glavnog trga katedrale, skreni pod uglom od 90 stepeni i pređi u drugu sporednu ulicu." Ali tog dana se nekako osećate avanturistički i odjednom otkrijete da su te dve tačke zapravo bile udaljene samo jednu zgradu. Ne znam za vas, ali ja se uvek osećam kao da nađem tunel ili interdimenzionalni portal.
(Laughter)
So we move along linear routes and our mind straightens streets and perceives turns as 90-degree angles.
Tako da se mi krećemo pravolinijskim putanjama i naš um ispravlja ulice i poima skretanja kao uglove od 90 stepeni.
The second thing that we do to make a place our own is we attach meaning and emotions to the things that we see along those lines. If you go to the Irish countryside and you ask an old lady for directions, brace yourself for some elaborate Irish storytelling about all the landmarks, yeah? She'll tell you the pub where her sister used to work, and "... go past that church where I got married," that kind of thing. So we fill our cognitive maps with these markers of meaning. What's more, we abstract repeat patterns and recognize them. We recognize them by the experiences and we abstract them into symbols. And of course, we're all capable of understanding these symbols.
Druga stvar koju činimo da označimo mesto kao svoje je pridodavanje značenja i emocija stvarima koje vidimo duž ovih putanja. Ako odete u neko selo u Irskoj i ako upitate staricu za pravac, spremite se na podugačke irske priče o orijentirima. Starica će vam reći za pab u kojem je radila njena sestra i da prođete pored crkve gde se udala, takve stvari. Dakle, popunjavamo kognitivne mape markerima sa značenjem. Čak, mi apstrahujemo, ponavljamo obrasce i prepoznajemo ih. Prepoznajemo ih iz iskustva i apstrahujemo ih u simbole. I naravno, sposobni smo da razumemo ove simbole.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
What's more, we're all capable of understanding the cognitive maps, and you are all capable of creating these cognitive maps yourselves. So next time, when you want to tell your friend how to get to your place, you grab a beermat, grab a napkin, and you just observe yourself create this awesome piece of communication design. It's got straight lines. It's got 90-degree corners. You might add little symbols along the way. And when you look at what you've just drawn, you realize it does not resemble a street map. If you were to put an actual street map on top of what you've just drawn, you'd realize your streets and the distances -- they'd be way off. No, what you've just drawn is more like a diagram or a schematic. It's a visual construct of lines, dots, letters, designed in the language of our brains.
Štaviše, sposobni smo da razumemo kognitivne mape, a vi ste sposobni da sami pravite ove kognitivne mape. Tako da sledeći put kad budete hteli da objasnite prijatelju kako da dođe do vas, uzmite podmetač za pivo ili uzmite salvetu i samo posmatrajte kako pravite ovaj sjajan primerak komunikacionog dizajna. Ima prave linije. Ima skretanja sa uglovima od 90 stepeni. Možda dodate male simbole duž puta. I kada pogledate to što ste nacrtali, shvatite da to ne liči na mapu ulice. Kada biste postavili pravu mapu ulice preko toga što ste upravo nacrtali, shvatili biste da bi vaše ulice i vaše udaljenosti bile potpuno pogrešne. Ne, to što ste upravo nacrtali više liči na dijagram ili šemu. To je vizuelni konstrukt linija, tačaka, slova, dizajniran u jeziku našeg mozga.
So it's no big surprise that the big information-design icon of the last century -- the pinnacle of showing everybody how to get from A to B, the London Underground map -- was not designed by a cartographer or a city planner; it was designed by an engineering draftsman. In the 1930s, Harry Beck applied the principles of schematic diagram design and changed the way public transport maps are designed forever. Now the very key to the success of this map is in the omission of less important information and in the extreme simplification. So, straightened streets, corners of 90 and 45 degrees, but also the extreme geographic distortion in that map. If you were to look at the actual locations of these stations, you'd see they're very different. But this is all for the clarity of the public Tube map. If you, say, wanted to get from Regent's Park station to Great Portland Street, the Tube map would tell you: take the Tube, go to Baker Street, change over, take another Tube. Of course, what you don't know is that the two stations are only about a hundred meters apart.
Tako da nije čudo što poznatu ikonu dizajna informacija prošlog veka, vrhunac objašnjavanja kako se stiže od tačke A do tačke B, mape londonskog metroa, nije osmislio kartograf ili gradski planer. Napravio ju je crtač inženjerskih planova. Heri Bek je 1930-ih primenio principe dizajna šematskih dijagrama i zauvek promenio način na koji se prave mape javnog prevoza. Ključ uspeha ove mape je u izostavljanju manje važnih informacija i u ogromnom uprošćavanju. Dakle pravolinijske ulice, uglovi od 90 ili 45 stepeni, ali isto tako krajnje geografsko iskrivljenje mape. Ako biste pogledali pravi položaj ovih stanica, videli biste da su one skroz drukčije. Ali to je sve u cilju jasnoće mape javnog prevoza. Ako biste, na primer, hteli da dođete od stanice Ridžents Park do Grejt Portland ulice, mapa prevoza bi vam rekla da odete na podzemni voz do Bejker Strita i presednete na drugi voz. Naravno, ono što ne biste znali je da su te dve stanice u stvarnosti udaljene oko sto metara. Dotakli smo temu javnog prevoza,
Now we've reached the subject of public transport, and public transport here in Dublin is a somewhat touchy subject.
a javni prevoz ovde u Dabbling je pomalo škakljiva tema. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
For everybody who does not know the public transport here in Dublin, essentially, we have this system of local buses that grew with the city. For every outskirt that was added, there was another bus route added, running from the outskirt all the way to the city center. And as these local buses approach the city center, they all run side by side and converge in pretty much one main street.
Za svakoga ko ne poznaje javni prevoz ovde u Dablinu, u suštini imamo sistem lokalnih autobusa koji se širio sa rastom grada. Za svako novo prigradsko naselje dodata je nova autobuska linija koja je išla od prigradskog naselja do centra grada i kako ovi lokalni autobusi prilaze centru grada, oni se kreću jedan do drugog i praktično se slivaju
So when I stepped off the boat 12 years ago,
u jednu glavnu ulicu.
I tried to make sense of that. Because exploring a city on foot only gets you so far. But when you explore a foreign and new public transport system, you will build a cognitive map in your mind in pretty much the same way. Typically, you choose yourself a rapid transport route, and in your mind, this route is perceived as a straight line. And like a pearl necklace, all the stations and stops are nicely and neatly aligned along the line. And only then you start to discover some local bus routes that would fill in the gaps, and that allow for those wormhole, inter-dimensional portal shortcuts. So I tried to make sense, and when I arrived, I was looking for some information leaflets that would help me crack this system and understand it, and I found those brochures.
Kada sam pre 12 godina prvi put kročio sa broda, pokušao sam da napravim neki smisao, jer kada istražujete grad peške, ne možete baš mnogo daleko. Ali kada istražujete strani i vama novi sistem javnog prevoza, počećete da pravite kognitivnu mapu u svojim mislima na sasvim isti način. Obično ćete izabrati brzu rutu prevoza i u vašim mislima rutu ćete doživljavati kao pravu liniju i baš poput biserne ogrlice, sve usputne stanice su lepo i uredno poređane duž linije i tek onda počnete da otkrivate neke lokalne autobuske linije koje će popuniti praznine i koje vam omogućavaju one prolaze ili prečice do interdimenzionalnih portala. Kada sam stigao, pokušao sam da nađem smisao, tražio sam informativne letke koji bi mi pomogli da proniknem u sistem i da ga razumem i tako sam našao ove brošure.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
They were not geographically distorted. They had a lot of omission of information, but unfortunately, the wrong information. Say, in the city center -- there were never actually any lines that showed the routes.
One nisu geografski izobličene. U njima je dosta informacija izostavljeno, ali nažalost pogrešnih informacija, npr. u centru grada. Nije bilo linija koje su prikazivale rute prevoza.
(Laughter)
There are actually not even any stations with names.
Zapravo nije bilo ni stanica sa imenima.
(Laughter)
Now, the maps of Dublin transport have gotten better, and after I finished the project, they got a good bit better, but still no station names, still no routes.
Sada su mape dablinskog prevoza postale bolje i nakon što sam završio projekat, postale su mnogo bolje, ali i dalje nije bilo imena stanica, niti ruta prevoza.
So, being naive, and being half-German, I decided, "Aris, why don't you build your own map?" So that's what I did. I researched how each and every bus route moved through the city, nice and logical, every bus route a separate line. I plotted it into my own map of Dublin, and in the city center ... I got a nice spaghetti plate.
I kako sam bio naivan i polu-Nemac, rekao sam sebi: „Aris, a što ne bi napravio svoju mapu?” Tako sam to i uradio. Istražio sam kako su se sve autobuske rute prostirale kroz grad, lepo i logično, svaka autobuska ruta kao odvojena linija, i ucrtao sam ih u moju mapu Dablina, a u centru grada sam dobio fin tanjir špageta. (Smeh)
(Laughter)
Now, this is a bit of a mess, so I decided, of course, "You're going to apply the rules of schematic design," cleaning up the corridors, widening the streets where there were loads of buses and making the streets at straight, 90-degree corners, 45-degree corners or fractions of that, and filled it in with the bus routes. And I built this city center bus map of the system, how it was five years ago. I'll zoom in again so that you get the full impact of the quays and Westmoreland Street.
To je bilo pomalo haotično, pa sam naravno odlučio da primenim pravilo šematskog dizajna, očistio sam puteve, proširio ulice gde je bilo mnoštvo autobusa i nacrtao sve ulice pravolinijske ili pod uglovima od 90 i 45 stepeni ili manjim uglovima i popunio ih autobuskim rutama. A napravio sam i ovu mapu autobuskih linija centra grada, onako kako je izgledala pre pet godina. Uvećaću je kako biste dobili pun pregled pristaništa i ulice Westmoreland.
(Laughter)
(Smeh)
Now I can proudly say --
Sada mogu sa ponosom reći –
(Applause)
(Aplauz) –
I can proudly say, as a public transport map, this diagram is an utter failure.
mogu sa ponosom reći, da je kao mapa prevoza ovaj dijagram totalna propast – (Smeh) –
(Laughter) Except, probably, in one aspect: I now had a great visual representation of just how clogged up and overrun the city center really was.
osim možda u jednom pogledu: sada sam imao bolju vizuelnu predstavu koliko je zapravo pretrpan i zagušen centar grada.
Now, call me old-fashioned, but I think a public transport route map should have lines, because that's what they are, yeah? They're little pieces of string that wrap their way through the city center or through the city. If you will, the Greek guy inside of me feels if I don't get a line, it's like entering the labyrinth of the Minotaur without having Ariadne giving you the string to find your way. So the outcome of my academic research, loads of questionnaires, case studies and looking at a lot of maps, was that a lot of the problems and shortcomings of the public transport system here in Dublin was the lack of a coherent public transport map -- a simplified, coherent public transport map -- because I think this is the crucial step to understanding a public transport network on a physical level, but it's also the crucial step to make a public transport network mappable on a visual level.
Nazovite me staromodnim, ali smatram da mapa ruta javnog prevoza treba da ima linije, jer to je ono što su one. Zar ne? One su kratke pruge koje vijugaju kroz centar grada ili kroz grad. Sa druge strane, Grk u meni, da tako kažem, oseća da ako ne napravim liniju, to je kao da uđem u Minotaurov lavirint bez da mi Arijadna da klupko da nađem put. Tako da je rezultat mog akademskog istraživanja gomile upitnika, studija slučaja i gledanja mnogo mapa, bio taj da je veliki broj problema i mana sistema javnog prevoza ovde u Dablinu poticao od nedostatka dosledne mape javnog prevoza, jednostavne, dosledne mape javnog prevoza, a budući da verujem da je ovo ključni korak u razumevanju mreže javnog transporta na fizičkom nivou, to je takođe ključni korak kako bismo napravili moguću vizuelnu mrežu javnog transporta.
So I teamed up with a gentleman called James Leahy, a civil engineer and a recent master's graduate of the Sustainable Development program at DIT, and together we drafted the simplified model network, which I could then go ahead and visualize.
Tako sam se udružio sa gospodinom Džejmsom Lihijem, inženjerom građevine i svežim masterom programa Održive izgradnje na Dablinskom tehnološkom institutu i zajedno sa njim sam nacrtao ovaj pojednostavljeni model mreže koji sam mogao da vizualizujem.
So here's what we did. We distributed these rapid-transport corridors throughout the city center, and extended them into the outskirts. Rapid, because we wanted them to be served by rapid-transport vehicles. They would get exclusive road use, where possible, and it would be high-quantity, high-quality transport. James wanted to use bus rapid transport for that, rather than light rail. For me, it was important that the vehicles that would run on those rapid transport corridors would be visibly distinguishable from local buses on the street. Now we could take out all the local buses that ran alongside those rapid transport means. Any gaps that appeared in the outskirts were filled again. So, in other words, if there was a street in an outskirt where there had been a bus, we put a bus back in, only now these buses wouldn't run all the way to the city center, but connect to the nearest rapid-transport mode, one of these thick lines over there. So the rest was merely a couple of months of work, and a couple of fights with my girlfriend, of our place constantly being clogged up with maps, and the outcome, one of the outcomes, was this map of the Greater Dublin area. I'll zoom in a little bit.
I evo šta smo uradili. Raspodelili smo ove brze puteve prevoza kroz centar grada i produžili ih prema prigradskim naseljima. Kažem brze jer smo hteli da tuda voze brza prevozna sredstva. Ta vozila bi dobila prednost korišćenja puta, gde je moguće i to bi bio prevoz visokog kvaliteta i kvantiteta. Džejms je hteo da za to upotrebi brzi autobuski prevoz, umesto lakog metroa. Za mene je bilo bitno da to vozilo koje bi se kretalo po tim brzim putevima prevoza bude vizuelno odvojeno od lokalnih autobusa u ulici. Sada smo mogli da izbacimo sve lokalne autobuse koji su vozili istim putem kao i brza sredstva prevoza. A praznine koje su se pojavile u predgrađu su ponovo popunjene. Drugim rečima, ako je postojala ulica u predgrađu u kojoj je bio autobus, tu bismo vratili autobus, samo što sada ovi autobusi ne bi išli skroz do centra grada, već bi se povezivali na najbliže brzo prevozno sredstvo, na jednu od ovih debljih linija. Ostatak je bio samo još par meseci rada i nekoliko svađa sa mojom devojkom o tome kako nam je stan stalno bio zatrpan mapama, a rezultat, tj. jedan od rezultata, bio je ova mapa šire oblasti Dablina. Malo ću je povećati.
This map only shows the rapid transport connections, no local bus, very much in the "metro map" style that was so successful in London, and that since has been exported to so many other major cities, and therefore is the language that we should use for public transport maps. What's also important is, with a simplified network like this, it now would become possible for me to tackle the ultimate challenge and make a public transport map for the city center, one where I wouldn't just show rapid transport connections, but also all the local bus routes, streets and the likes, and this is what a map like this could look like. I'll zoom in a little bit.
Ova mapa pokazuje samo brze prevozne veze, bez lokalnih autobusa, baš u stilu mape metroa koja je bila tako uspešna u Londonu i koja je od tada izvezena u mnoge druge gradove, te je to stoga jezik koji svi treba da koristimo za mape javnog prevoza. Još je važno da sam sada sa ovako pojednostavljenom mrežom mogao da se uhvatim u koštac sa najvećim izazovom: pravljenjem mape javnog prevoza za centar grada, mape koja ne bi prikazivala samo veze brzog prevoza, nego i rute lokalnih autobusa, ulica i tome slično i evo kako bi takva mapa mogla da izgleda. Malo ću je povećati.
In this map, I'm including each transport mode, so rapid transport, bus, DART, tram and the likes. Each individual route is represented by a separate line. The map shows each and every station, each and every station name, and I'm also displaying side streets. In fact, most of the side streets even with their name, and for good measure, also a couple of landmarks, some of them signified by little symbols, others by these isometric three-dimensional bird's-eye-view drawings.
U ovoj mapi sam uključio svaki vid prevoza, brzi prevoz, autobus, dablinski brzi DART, tramvaj i slično. Svaka pojedinačna ruta je predstavljena pojedinačnom linijom. Mapa pokazuje svaku stanicu, ime svake stanice, a takođe prikazujem sporedne ulice, zapravo, većina sporednih ulica je sa imenom i dodatno nekoliko orijentira, neki su predstavljeni kao mali simboli, drugi kao ovi izometrijski trodimenzionalni crteži iz ptičije perspektive.
The map is relatively small in overall size, so something that you could still hold as a fold-out map or display in a reasonably-sized display box on a bus shelter. I think it tries to be the best balance between actual representation and simplification -- the language of way-finding in our brain. So, straightened lines, cleaned-up corners, and of course, that very, very important geographic distortion that makes public transport maps possible. If you, for example, have a look at the two main corridors that run through the city -- the yellow and orange one over here -- this is how they look in an actual, accurate street map, and this is how they would look in my distorted, simplified public transport map.
Mapa je relativno male veličine, dakle možete je i dalje držati kao mapu na rasklapanje ili je prikazati na oglasnom prostoru razumne veličine na autobuskom stajalištu. Mislim da je ovo najbolja ravnoteža između stvarnog predstavljanja i pojednostavljivanja, jezika kojim opisujemo put u našem umu. Dakle prave linije, prečišćeni uglovi i naravno, vrlo vrlo bitno, geografsko izobličenje koje omogućava mape javnog prevoza. Ako pogledate na primer dva glavna puta koji protiču kroz grad, žuti i narandžasti, oni ovako izgledaju na stvarnoj i preciznoj mapi grada, a ovako izgledaju na mojoj izobličenoj i pojednostavljenoj mapi javnog prevoza.
So for a successful public transport map, we should not stick to accurate representation, but design them in the way our brains work.
Tako da za uspešnu mapu javnog prevoza, ne treba da se držimo preciznog predstavljanja, već da ih napravimo onako kako naš um razmišlja.
The reactions I got were tremendous, it was really good to see. And of course, for my own self, I was very happy to see that my folks in Germany and Greece finally have an idea what I do for a living.
Reakcije koje sam dobio su ogromne. Bilo je sjajno videti to. Naravno, lično sam bio vrlo srećan da vidim da su moji u Nemačkoj i Grčkoj konačno imali predstavu šta je to što radim za život. (Smeh) Hvala vam. (Aplauz)
(Laughter)
Thank you.
(Applause)