Requested by: My dad (whose love of transit maps I have inherited)

The London Tube Map is so synonymous with the name Harry Beck that I feel sure many people think he’s still holed up in a studio somewhere working on the maps even now (he died in 1974). In actuality, Beck’s last published Tube map was released in 1959: in 1960 it was replaced by this new version, ostensibly made by London Transport’s own Publicity Officer, Harold Hutchison (although he was not known as a designer).

Beck was horrified, believing he had an agreement with LT that “all future work on the diagram was to be carried out or edited by me”. However, if there was an agreement to this effect, it was verbal only and Beck got nowhere with his protestations. For better or worse, the diagram he had worked over 25 years on had passed on to new hands.

Have we been there? Yes

What we like: The first Tube Map to use lower-case for station names. This has two positives: it makes the diagram easier to read as a whole, and also allows the all-caps interchange stations to become more visually important.

What we don’t like: An absolute lack of curves where routes change direction make this diagram very stilted and angular, lacking the grace and flow of the best Beck diagrams. The strange jog in the Central Line at White City (where the Central Line crosses the Metropolitan) is very visually unappealing. The map gets very cramped around Bank and Monument, leading to “Aldgate” having to be broken up on either side of route lines to fit. Square stations markers for British Railways connections also disrupt the flow of the routes.

Our rating: Reviled by some as the map that was stolen from Beck, it’s not a patch on what came before it. Aesthetically, I don’t feel it is up with the best versions of the Tube Map – the sharp diagonals give a jagged, staccato feeling to the whole thing, and it’s all rather obvious that Hutchinson wasn’t much of a designer. Two stars.

Source: The London Tube Map Archive – link no longer active