London Underground Mapping
Here is the original London Underground map created in 1908. It is very disorganised and hard to see where each line actually goes. Harry Beck had been working as an electrical draughtsman for the London Underground and was out of work when he produced the first sketches of the map that we are familiar with today. He was only 29 and worked in his own time on his own initiative. When he first offered it to the management it was rejected as being too radical, but he persevered!
Harry understood that the order of the stations and the connections were the most important things and that the actual geography and distance between stations is less important when you
are travelling underground. Harry was used to drawing circuit diagrams like the one below:
. 2013. . [ONLINE] Available at:http://www.tfl.gov.uk/assets/images/general/beckmap1.jpg. [Accessed 23 May 2013].
The striking Tube map that is recognised across the globe was the brainchild of Underground electrical draughtsman, Harry Beck, who produced this imaginative yet stunningly simple design back in 1933.
Beck based the map on the circuit diagrams he drew for his day job, stripping the sprawling Tube network down to basics. The result was an instantly clear and comprehensible chart that would become an essential guide to London - and a template for transport maps the world over. Beck's revolutionary design, with certain modifications and additions, survives to the present day and is set to serve London Underground and its millions of customers for many years to come.
Here are some other examples of maps from different countries...
Tokyo Subway map
Here are some transport for London tube map advertisements...
London Underground - YouTube. 2013. London Underground - YouTube. [ONLINE] Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XjzYMt4aYnM. [Accessed 23 May 2013].
No comments:
Post a Comment