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To “celebrate” last night’s surprise Toronto Transit strike, let’s all download this rider-modified TTC subway routemap. Here’s the scoop, from the TTC Subway Rider Efficiency Guide:

On February 22, 2006, John Martz created a hilarious TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) Subway Map with each station’s name as an anagram. The map, inspired by a similar anagram map of London’s Tube, was an instant hit among Toronto’s online community. Within a few days though, a TTC lawyer sent a cease and desist letter to John citing intellectual property laws and threatening legal action if he didn’t pull it from his website.

In the years that have followed, I’ve noticed this thing popping up all over the place (including the original author’s site). It looks as though the TTC has cooled its jets (literally and figuratively), and it also looks like the original London anagram-map has inspired many others…

Popularity: 77% [?]

Deutsche Telekom AG, mother company to T-Mobile in Holland, is (allegedly) attempting to register the colour Magenta at the European brand office. This would effectively block other companies from using this primary printing colour for their own brands.

Reaction in the Netherlands has been quite negative toward T-Mobile and Deutsche Telekom AG, but it has created some great design ideas. What happens to CMYK without the M? FreeMagenta.nl has is posting some possibilities, and is tracking reactions.

COLOURlovers was warning us about this pinkish hostile takeover back in November of 2007, citing some of Deutsche Telekom AG’s claims. It’s not exactly clear:

…the colour magenta [and other designs and logos] are registered and/or unregistered trademarks of Deutsche Telekom AG in the US and/or other countries.

link via Trendhunter

Popularity: 52% [?]