Network diagrams with interface names and IPs

Topic title says it all. I’ve tinkered around with network diagrams all my career, and never really been satisfied with how they turn out if I try to include interface names (ex. xe-0/1/2) and accompanying IP addresses in them. Things just become so cluttered.

Artistically speaking, if you don’t have a balance between space and content, the composition will overall feel cluttered. Your eyes won’t really flow over the diagram. Basically it stops being something nice to look at, and coworkers won’t adapt to them.

I’ve had cases where I’ve caught coworkers trying to map out what interferes connect to what devices and the IPs and I’m like “dude I made a drawing for that. I shared with all of you it’s on the sharepoint.” Well, they don’t like looking at it because it’s cluttered.

All of the resources out there like networkdiagram101.com feature examples where interface names and IP addresses are generally excluded. That’s not the kind of document I’m trying to make. I want it to be a technical document where if you see an IP you don’t recognize in a traceroute you’d visually see exactly which interface you hit, etc.

Is that my problem that most diagrams aren’t supposed to be that granular? Are they just supposed to abstract the literal and depict the logical, i.e. which devices are connected to which devices, and don’t include granular details like which port and what IP the connections are?

To me they just become a lot less useful.

Are there any example of any diagrams out there with very granular information that don’t look like a jumbled cluster of text boxes everywhere? Or is that just a problem with granularity?

Also icon size: if you’re doing network diagram 101 style pieces then small icons work great. If you’re trying to depict and label 4-5 interfaces coming off one device, you can’t attach all that to a small icon easily. But using bigger icons tends to make things look almost juvenile and unprofessional. Almost cartoon like it that makes sense.

I want something that’s easy to look at while also being very granular and containing tons of info.

Any suggestions?