Mapbox Streets redesign

Nicki Dlugash
Thu, 12 May 2016 12:35:00 -0400

This week we launched a redesign of all our maps across all our Mapbox GL APIs, SDKs, and tools. It’s been just over a year since the last significant redesign of our flagship map, Mapbox Streets, and we’re excited to share some details about its most recent evolution.

Like its predecessor, the new Mapbox Streets is a highly detailed, general use map featuring everything from hillshading to landuse to points of interest to buildings. What’s different in this redesigned map is more emphasis on road and transit networks, to aid in navigation and to give the map a stronger visual hierarchy.

We’ve continued to upgrade our data and styling for complex road systems, including improved visibility of major road networks at low zoom levels:

Major road networks in the Midwestern United States.

We recently added more support for displaying localized highway shields and subway icons. In this redesign, we’ve refined our custom icons to be more prominent, recognizable, and crisp at any resolution:

National and state highways in Kolkata.

National rail, tube, and DLR stations in London.

In addition, we’ve added more relevant high-zoom-level features, to help you get from A to B. For drivers, we’ve added motorway exits and junctions, and turning circles:

Motorway exits in Los Angeles, CA.

Turning circles in Foster City, CA.

For pedestrians, we’ve added pedestrian plazas and squares, as well as distinct styling for stairs – both important links for walking routes in urban areas:

The Spanish Steps, Rome.

In order to focus the visual complexity of the map on key features, we’ve edited out some details from the previous Mapbox Streets, including contour lines. For use cases where these features are important context, we designed an alternative general use map: Mapbox Outdoors.

Explore Mapbox Streets further, and start building with it today!