In 1972 New York City debuted Massimo Vignelli's new subway map. The design was a dramatic departure from its predecessors. visualcomplexity explains:

In 1972, the renowned Italian designer Massimo Vignelli redesigned George Salomon's New York Subway map, which persisted until 1979, when superseded by Michael Hertz's design.

It was a marvelous conceptual map, and it was easy to read. It was a tool for navigating the subways, although not one for navigating the city streets. Out with the complicated tangle of geographically accurate train routes. No more messy angles. Instead, train lines would run at 45 and 90 angles only. Each line was represented by a color. Each stop represented by a dot. There was an obvious influence from the London Underground map, originally created by Harry Beck in 1933, however, Vignelli took it one step farther, in creating the now-famous intertwined wiring-diagram map of New York's vastly complicated subway lines.

Vignelli recently updated his map. Even the Airtrain is included. 500 signed prints have been produced, which are being sold by Men's Vogue to benefit Green Worker Cooperatives, a nonprofit organization dedicated to creating worker-owned and environmentally sound cooperatives in the South Bronx. The print costs $299. We suggest you grab one while you still can. We've got a blank wall awaiting our copy.