All posts tagged: Harry Beck

Fantasy Map: London Underground Map from “The Escapist”

November 5, 2012
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Here’s another transit map made as a prop for a film, but with considerably more style and skill that the weird alternate universe DC Subway map for “Leverage” featured a while ago. At first glance, this prop – made for the 2008 film, “The Escapist” – looks like an exact replica of Harry Beck’s unusual and short-lived 1941 London Underground diagram, which uses 30- and 60-degree angles and “Olympic Ring” style station interchanges. Everything is […]

Unofficial Map: London Tube Map as Electrical Circuit Board by Yuri Suzuki

September 10, 2012
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Created for an exhibition at the London Design Museum, I believe this is also a functional radio as well as a kick-ass representation of the London Underground. The intricate level of detail just has to be seen to be believed. Can I have one? I’ve seen a few comments around the Internet that this piece brings the Tube Map full circle as Harry Beck was an electrical draughtsman who based his design off circuit diagrams. […]

Historical Map: Diagram Showing London’s Underground Railways, Power Stations, Substations, 1933

June 18, 2012
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Here’s a fascinating reworking of Harry Beck’s original 1933 Tube map that I haven’t seen before. Apparently it’s from an article in a journal from November 1933 that details the work required to upgrade the electrical services on the Underground. Apart from the stark black and white treatment and addition of the power stations and substations, what’s really interesting about this map are the little tweaks and changes that have already occurred since the first […]

Historical Map: Sydney Railway Map, 1939

May 8, 2012
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Just how influential was the original Harry Beck London Underground diagram of 1933? Certainly enough for Sydney, Australia to issue this nearly identical vision of its own suburban rail system in 1939, right down to its own version of the London Underground roundel. I’ve never been able to find out whether this map was authorised or licensed from the London Underground, or whether Sydney just thought, “that looks like a good idea, let’s do that!” […]

Historical Map: Harry Beck’s 1961 Victoria Line Tube Map Proposal

January 8, 2012
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It seems I’m having a London Underground kind of week… When people ask me what my favourite version of the London Tube Map is, I always show them this. By 1961, Harry Beck was no longer responsible for producing the Tube map, it having been forcibly passed on to Harold Hutchison. However, more out of hope than anything else, he continued to produce new mockups of the map which he passed on to London Transport […]

Historical Map: George Dow Diagram of LNER Great Northern Suburban Services, 1929

December 13, 2011
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Almost everyone credits Harry Beck with “inventing” the diagrammatic transit map in 1933 with his iconic London Underground map. But the diagram form had already been in use for a number of years before that, as shown in this delightful 1929 diagram for LNER suburban services out of London’s Kings Cross station to points north. It was designed by George Dow, who created many such diagrams for the LNER. His son, Andrew Dow, wrote a […]