Video game/map mashup artist Robert Bacon has a new map that renders the BART map as a verdant 8-bit landscape, crisscrossed with a rainbow ribbon of train lines and studded with trees and/or green mushrooms. Bacon has previously produced Zelda and Donkey Kong maps of Chicago and a Super Mario 3 version of New York. The artist and Second City performer, who lives in Chicago, is not to be confused with one Dave Delisle, who once upon a time mashed up Mario Kart with BART in a pleasing visual portmanteau. Where Delisle's more abstract take might be thought of as the Vignelli map of video-game cartography, Bacon's version is the more illustrative, populist choice.
Writing at Chicago Now, Bacon explains:
I've been wanting to do the San Francisco/Oakland area for these maps for awhile now. I really loved how the coast turned out and it was fun thinking of the proper way to represent the Golden Gate Bridge and Alcatraz. I really wanted to put the sunken ship around Ocean Beach where the King Philip famously sunk in 1878, but there wasn't enough room. Posters of Bacon's creation are available here. No word on whether SF will get upgraded to Super Mario 3 status anytime soon.
· Bay Area Super Mario World Map [Chicago Now]
· Mario BART Map Is Hella Tight [Muni Diaries]
· Mario Maps [Ript Apparel]