Submitted by Kara, who says: I know you’ve reflected less than favorably in the past on maps done “in the style of” the London Tube map, but here’s a piece I made redrawing Chicago’s CTA routes in the style of the current edition of London’s iconic map, complete with a hybrid TFL/CTA logo. I lovingly refer to the result as “TF-‘el’.” The style is not transcribed perfectly, I’m aware – perhaps, in light of the […]
There’s a new version of the London Tube Map out for 2016, and it looks like things are getting worse for our venerable friend. With every revision, it’s being asked to do more and more in the same amount of space – Underground, Overground, DLR, TfL Rail, that darn aerial tram, zone information and more – and it’s definitely beginning to groan under all that weight. A London blogger by the name of Diamond Geezer […]
It’s almost bizarre to think that an enormous cosmopolitan city like London doesn’t have 24-hour rail service. Yes, there’s an extensive night bus network, but the Tube is such an integral part of the city that it seems odd that it just stops after midnight. However, that’s about to change on Fridays and Saturdays from September 12, as shown on this new map from Transport for London. I’ve already seen some positive commentary on it […]
Thanks to Robert McConnell, who let me know that the map I featured in my last post is actually a modern digital map made by none other than Maxwell Roberts. Roberts states that he based his version of the map off one that Beck produced, unsolicited, in 1938 and that a copy of this version is in Ken Garland’s excellent book, “Mr. Beck’s Underground Map”. I own a copy of this book, so was a […]
Here’s something via Chris Applegate on Flickr, where Chris says: Finally put up and framed the gorgeous vintage Tube map I won in a competition yonks ago. It is gorgeous, but it’s not just a Tube map, nor is it anything I’ve ever actually seen before. It appears to be a Greater London Tube Map/main line railway diagram produced in a Beck-like style – a precursor to this 1988 “London Connections” map (May 2013, 3 stars) […]
Question: Which of Beck’s maps of the London Underground do you most prefer, and what properties does it have that elevate it above the others in your opinion as a designer? Answer: My absolute favourite Beck-drawn Tube Map is actually his unpublished 1961 Victoria Line proposal, which I wrote about in this post back in 2012. Go take a look at it – it’s simply gorgeous, with an arrow-straight lavender Victoria Line cutting directly across […]
If you ever wonder just how much the Tube Map is ingrained into British culture, then I think we have the answer here: drawn (and drawn well) by a six year old, complete with National Rail interchange icons. Fantastic! This is my representation of the London Underground map (which I am very interested in) and shows the journey from my house to my Daddy’s work near Waterloo (identified by the star – which is unfortunately […]
The Underground has been around so long, and its famous Diagram so ingrained in our heads, that we tend to think of it as an immutable object: always the same, never changing. That’s absolutely not so, as this fantastic reworking of the Tube Diagram shows. Shown here are the 40-plus “ghost stations” of the London Underground – stations that once existed as part of the “Tube”, but no longer do, for varying reasons. Some stations […]
A couple of great photos showing the unique Underground Map-themed livery on GB Railfreight engine 66721. The left side of the engine shows a portion of the original 1933 H.C. Beck design, while the right side shows the corresponding part of the 2013 Tube map. I believe that this engine is used to perform maintenance work on sections of the Underground, so the theme is certainly appropriate, as is the engine’s name plaque, seen in […]
What a fantastic photo! More than anything, it illustrates how people actually use maps in real life. Now that a destination has been reached via the Tube, a street map is required for the next stage of the journey. There’s some serious study of that map going on here! Also, look at the Tube map on the wall behind our geographically-challenged subject. Charing Cross Road goes right past Leicester Square tube station, where I’m almost […]
