All posts tagged: London

London Tube Map Featured in New UK Passport Design

November 3, 2015
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Passport design has come a long way in the last few years, often being transformed from relatively dour official documents into elaborate and detailed expressions of national pride.  The new UK passport is no exception, with the theme of “Creative United Kingdom” tying all the page designs together, celebrating over 500 years of artists, landmarks and architecture, the performing arts and iconic innovations – including this spread for the London Underground, prominently featuring the Tube Map. […]

Submission – Photo: Hand-painted Wooden Tube Map by Camilla Barnard

September 26, 2015
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Submitted by Steve Collins. This lovely hand-painted Tube map is just a small part of an impressive installation at the designjunction exhibition in London. Artist Camilla Barnard, in conjunction with TfL, has built an entire Tube Station replica out of wood, including ticket machines and barriers, a newspaper stand and both eastbound and westbound stations. Fun! Source: Creative Review – link no longer active.

Submission – Official Map: Central London Night Bus Routes

September 22, 2015
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Submitted by ruddlesrocket, who says: What do you think of this?  I think it’s probably the worst map that TfL produce, having neither the benefits of geographically accurate maps (it’s difficult to know what streets the buses run along), and diagrammatic maps, in that it’s almost impossible to trace the route taken by one bus. Transit Maps says: I totally agree with this assessment! I’ll never understand why some night service maps completely eschew the principles […]

Official Map: Geographical “London Connections” Map by TfL

September 17, 2015
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Here’s a map that’s been doing the rounds over the last few days, and has now been sent my way by many, many readers (Thanks to all of you!). Compared to the familiar standard Tube map, It’s a more geographically accurate map of rail services in and around London (as of late 2014), and opinions on it seem to be quite divided. Some people think it’s more useful than the normal Tube map, some think […]

Historical Diagram: Piccadilly Circus Tube Station by Renzo Picasso, 1929

July 24, 2015
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Cutaway Maps, Historical Maps
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We all know that I love a good cutaway diagram, and this example – drawn by Italian architect and urban designer, Renzo Picasso (no relation) – is just superb. Drawn in 1929, coinciding with the opening of Charles Holden’s sub-surface circular booking hall which replaced the original 1906 above-ground Leslie Green-designed station building. The unusual perspective, halfway between the platform level and the (invisible) roads above, permits a wonderful level of clarity in the drawing.  […]

Official Map: London Night Tube Services, 2015

June 23, 2015
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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 […]

Photo: Willesden Junction, Not Willesden Green!

May 13, 2015
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A very obvious sticker hides a rather monumental error on this Bakerloo Line strip map. The rather ugly abbreviation “Junct” only just covers up the fact that this sign used to read “Willesden Green” – which is on the Jubilee Line, not the Bakerloo! Prior to 1979 and the opening of the Jubilee Line, Willesden Green was serviced by Bakerloo trains – but we can’t even blame an old sign here, as this one only dates from the […]

Neon Subway Maps by Petr Koll

April 30, 2015
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Really nice work here. What I love most is that these aren’t just neon copies of the official maps (that’s London above, not really looking like Beck’s map at all) but are the artist’s own interpretation of each system. Click on the source attribution below to go see all the other systems on the designer’s website – he’s made installations based on many cities, including Paris, New York, Tokyo and others. Side note: shame on […]

Advertisement: “Double Diamond” Beer Featuring the London Tube Map (c. late 1970s?)

April 8, 2015
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More proof of just how ingrained the Tube Map is in the English psyche is evident in this billboard advertisement for Double Diamond beer – inserted as the punchline in the long-running “Only here for the beer!” campaign.  The ad campaign itself is almost as much as part of England as the Tube Map; the tag line has entered into the vernacular, much like “Where’s the beef?” in the U.S., and “Not happy, Jan!” in […]

Photo: Layer Upon Layer of Tube Map, 2008

March 25, 2015
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Great photo of a old and weather-worn Tube Map, taken at White City tube station. If you look closely, you can see that more than one layer of map is visible in certain sections, giving sort of an archaeological cross-section of different eras (See the doubled-up interchange station symbols at Euston for a good example). The most visible map seems to date from the early 1970s as it shows the Highbury branch of the Northern […]