Couple finds new line in 'maps to nowhere'

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The Valley subway map created by Rob and Damia Stewart of Northampton and their company, Transit Authority Figures.

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CAROL LOLLIS

Damia and Rob Stewart pose at their Northampton home last week with some of the subway maps they have created with their company, Transit Authority Figures. Below is the one for Northampton and Amherst.

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CAROL LOLLIS

Other subway maps done by Damia and Rob Stewart at their office in their home in Northampton.

NORTHAMPTON - To get from Rob Stewart's South Street house to one of the stores carrying a new poster he designed is easy - just one stop on the uptown local.

That's the Blue Line, mind you. Take the escalator up to Main Street and head down to the block to Faces.

At least that is the route in Stewart's skewed universe. For everybody else, the train will be a long time in coming.

The Blue Line - along with the Green, Red and Yellow lines - is a concoction in a Valley subway system that exists only in a piece of wall art. And with it, the designer and his wife and business partner, Damia Stewart, hope to jump the turnstile into souvenir markets across the country.

Since popping out a map of a fake Valley subway system late last year, and then being harangued by friends to create others, the Stewarts, who run the 6-year-old Northampton firm Rob & Damia, are in hot pursuit of sales on the Cape and the Islands, in southern Vermont and here in the Valley itself.

Their offering: A run of 18-by-24-inch posters, priced at $20, that tap into what they hope is an underground longing for subways and mass transit.

Conceived as gift

Late last year, the Stewarts printed 200 copies of their Valley subway map and shipped them to clients, potential clients, lawmakers, influence-peddlers and friends. Just as a token of their appreciation.

One friend, Townsend Belisle of New York City, got one look at the poster and told them: "You may have stumbled on the must-have tourist item for the next four years."

The first tourist season has yet to start for the Stewarts' new business, Transit Authority Figures. But with Belisle's help, they stand ready to meet incoming hordes with something new to buy. Designs for non-existent subway systems will be sold at more than a dozen retailers on the Cape and Islands this summer.

Belisle, an agent for creative firms and a family friend, helped the Stewarts with branding and marketing. He said it has been easy to secure outlets. "All you have to do is show them the picture. Nine out of 10 people get it and they're giddy about it. One in every 10 say, ¿I don't get it. There is no subway here.'"

In his view, the posters appeal to people for their irony (as in, this is the last place you'd see a subway), for their sentiment (it puts a place people love on the map) and even for their wishfulness (hey, it would make getting on and off the Cape a lot easier).

"It is a sentimental recall of something people love and at the same time it is a piece of art," he said.

Damia Stewart, half of the creative team, says her husband Rob was the go-to guy on this project. After studying a Boston Metro map last year, he started playing with the classic design elements of a subway map - particularly the fact that all angles make either 45- or 90-degree bends.

On their map, the Red Line starts at Look Park and travels east, tracing an old streetcar line, with stops in Florence, at Smith College, at the Academy of Music and elsewhere downtown before heading off toward the airport and points in Hadley and Amherst.

The couple printed 200 copies of the map to nowhere and, as Rob Stewart puts it, "went on a giving spree."

The emails came back: "Where do I get one of these?" State Sen. Stanley Rosenberg sent a post card saying, as Damia Stewart recalls, "Maybe this will be actualized some day."

Nothing on the posters gives away that this is a joke. That's one reason the Stewarts dropped a proposed name for their company - Fake American Rapid Transit - as well as the logo they had in mind for that.

"We wanted it to be straightforward, but also playful," Damia Stewart said. "Even though it's make-believe, it's not too humorous. It could be a real subway system."

Actually, efficiency appeals to her. As a supply-chain management major at Arizona State University, Damia Stewart, 35, appreciates the idea of getting goods, or people, from one place to another. She fondly recalls commutes on the Boston and Washington subways.

In her world view, subways help ease traffic congestion, solve parking problems and - while her own children are still young - keep teen drivers out of cars.

When creating the Valley subway map, Rob Stewart, 38, was in touch with his inner artist. Today, he's been communing with his outer entrepreneur.

One friend's reaction to the poster last year helped propel him forward. "She opened it up and the first thing she said was, 'You should sell these.' Up until that moment, the thought had never crossed my mind."

Expanding fake world

At Belisle's urging, Stewart created maps for the other tourist regions, including one for Manchester, Vt., where he grew up. "It's much easier to do these for places you know well."

Transit Authority Figures ordered several thousand copies of the posters from a Rhode Island printer and is expanding its markets. Faces in Northampton carries them.

"This is the first time I've really gotten excited about being an entrepreneur," Rob Stewart said.

The challenge now is to get into as many markets as they can, if the posters do indeed sell, before anyone else can. While they can copyright each design, they aren't likely to be able to prevent imitators. The Hamptons on Long Island seem a good prospect, Stewart said, as do the Virgin Islands and Western ski resorts. T-shirts might be next.

"The onus is on us to get out there first and get Key West and the Bahamas," Stewart said.

As a designer, he likes the freedom a subway map allows, even as it seeks to represent the physical world. "There is a huge liberty given to straying from true geography," he said. "You can focus on making them pretty and making the angles look pretty."

The only geographic feature in the Valley subway map is the Connecticut River, whose course is also restricted to 45- and 90-degree angles, even at its Oxbow.

If Transit Authority Figures starts to make money, proceeds may help the Stewarts get together with Belisle's family. They are old friends, but haven't spent time off together in a few years.

"Our immediate goal is to be able to go on vacation again," Belisle said.

To some place special, with or without a subway.

For a close look at the posters, visit transitauthorityfigures.com.