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The July 2024 Tube Map
The Tube map as of July 2024

The Tube map (sometimes called the London Underground map) is a schematic transport map of the lines, stations and services of the London Underground, known colloquially as "the Tube", hence the map's name. The first schematic Tube map was designed by Harry Beck in 1931.[1][2] Since then, it has been expanded to include more of London's public transport systems, including the Docklands Light Railway, London Overground, the Elizabeth line, Tramlink, the London Cable Car and Thameslink.

As a schematic diagram, it shows not the geographic locations but the relative positions of the stations, lines, the stations' connective relations and fare zones. The basic design concepts have been widely adopted for other such maps around the world[3] and for maps of other sorts of transport networks and even conceptual schematics.[4]

A regularly updated version of the map is available from the official Transport for London website.[5] In 2006, the Tube map was voted one of Britain's top 10 design icons which included Concorde, Mini, Supermarine Spitfire, K2 telephone box, World Wide Web and the AEC Routemaster bus.[6][7] Since 2004, Art on the Underground has been commissioning artists to create covers for the pocket Tube map.[8]

History

[edit]

Early maps

[edit]

As London's early transport system was operated by a variety of independent companies, there were no complete maps of the network, just for the individual companies' routes. The maps were not typically schematic and were simply the line overlaid on a regular city map. There was no integration of the companies' services or any co-operation in advertising.

In 1907, The Evening News commissioned a pocket map, The Evening News London "Tube Map". It was the first map to show all of the lines with equal weight being given to each line, and it was the first map to use a different colour for each line.[9]

Another early combined map was published in 1908 by the Underground Electric Railways Company of London (UERL) in conjunction with four other underground railway companies that used the "Underground" brand as part of a common advertising factor.[10]

Map of Underground lines, 1908

The map showed eight routes – four operated by the UERL and one from each of the other four companies:

A geographical map presented restrictions since for sufficient clarity of detail in the crowded central area of the map required the extremities of the District and Metropolitan lines to be omitted and so a full network diagram was not provided. The problem of truncation remained for nearly half a century. Although all of the western branches of the District and Piccadilly lines were included for the first time in 1933 with Harry Beck's first proper Tube map, the portion of the Metropolitan line beyond Rickmansworth did not appear until 1938, and the eastern end of the District line did not appear until the mid-1950s.

The route map continued to be developed and was issued in various formats and artistic styles until 1920, when, for the first time, the geographic background detail was omitted in a map designed by MacDonald Gill.[11] That freed the design to enable greater flexibility in the positioning of lines and stations. The routes became more stylised but the arrangement remained, largely, geographic in nature. The 1932 edition was the last geographic map to be published before Beck's diagrammatic map was introduced.

Beck's maps

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The first diagrammatic map of London's rapid transit network was designed by Harry Beck in 1931.[1][2] He was a London Underground employee who realised that because the railway ran mostly underground, the physical locations of the stations were largely irrelevant to the traveller wanting to know how to get from one station to another; only the topology of the route mattered. That approach is similar to that of electrical circuit diagrams although they were not the inspiration for Beck's map. His colleagues pointed out the similarities, however, and he once produced a joke map with the stations replaced by electrical circuit symbols and names, with terminology such as "Bakerlite" for the Bakerloo line.[12]

To that end, Beck devised a simplified map with stations, straight-line segments connecting them, and the River Thames; and lines running only vertically, horizontally, or on 45° diagonals. To make the map clearer and to emphasise connections, Beck differentiated between ordinary stations, marked with tick marks, and interchange stations, marked with diamonds. London Underground was initially sceptical of his proposal since it was an uncommissioned spare-time project and was tentatively introduced to the public in a small pamphlet in 1933. However, it immediately became popular, and the Underground has used topological maps to illustrate the network ever since.

Despite the complexity of making the map, Beck was paid just ten guineas for the artwork and design of the card edition (five guineas for the poster).[13] After its initial success, he continued to design the Tube map until 1960, a single (and unpopular) 1939 edition by Hans Scheger being the only exception.[14] Meanwhile, as well as accommodating new lines and stations, Beck continually altered the design, such as changing the interchange symbol from a diamond to a circle and altering the line colours of the Central line from orange to red and of the Bakerloo line from red to brown. Beck's final design, in 1960, bears a strong resemblance to the current map. Beck lived in Finchley, North London, and one of his maps is still preserved on the southbound platform at Finchley Central station, on the Northern line.[15]

In 1997, Beck's importance was posthumously recognised, and as of 2022, this statement is printed on every Tube map: "This diagram is an evolution of the original design conceived in 1931 by Harry Beck".

After Beck

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Diagram containing several differently-coloured lines connecting nodes that are small hollow black circles. The lines and stations are at geographically accurate positions, with the curved lines drawn more flexibly than on the traditional Tube map. The river is also included, represented as a geographically accurate light blue strip. This map is arguably harder to read.
Unofficial map of fare zone 1 that shows the approximate geographic locations of the stations and lines.

By 1960, Beck had fallen out with the Underground's publicity officer, Harold Hutchison, who was not a designer himself but drafted his own version of the Tube map that year. It removed the smoothed corners of Beck's design and created some highly cramped areas (most notably around Liverpool Street station), and the lines were generally less straight.[16] However, Hutchison also introduced interchange symbols (circles for Underground-only, squares for connections with British Rail main line services) that were black and allowed multiple lines through them, as opposed to Beck, who used one circle for each line at an interchange, coloured according to the corresponding line.

In 1964, the design of the map was taken over by Paul Garbutt, who, like Beck, had produced a map in his spare time because of his dislike of the Hutchison design. Garbutt's map restored curves and bends to the diagram but retained Hutchison's black interchange circles, although squares were replaced with circles with a dot inside. Garbutt continued to produce Underground maps for at least another 20 years. Tube maps stopped bearing their designer's name in 1986, when the elements of the map then had a very strong resemblance to today's map.[17] While the standard Tube map avoided representing most mainline services, a new variant of the map issued in 1973, the "London's Railways" map, was the first to depict Tube and above-ground mainline rail services in a diagrammatic style that closely matched Beck's designs. That version was created by Tim Demuth of the London Transport publicity office and was jointly sponsored by British Rail and London Transport. Demuth's map did not replace the standard Tube map but continued to be published as a supplementary resource, later known as the "London Connections" map.[18]

Recent years

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Some alterations have been made to the map over the years. More recent designs have incorporated changes to the network, such as the Docklands Light Railway and the extension to the Jubilee line. The map has also been expanded to include routes brought under Transport for London control such as TfL Rail and to note the Tube stops that connect with National Rail services, links to airports and River Services. In some cases, stations within short walking distance are now shown, often with the distance between them, such as Fenchurch Street's distance from Tower Hill (an evolution of the pedestrian route between Bank and Monument stations, which was once prominently marked on the map). Further, step-free access notations are also incorporated in the current map. In addition, the fare zones have been added to help passengers judge the cost of a journey. One of the major changes to be made to the revision of the Tube map put out in September 2009 was the removal of the River Thames. The river had been omitted from official maps on several previous occasions (for example, according to David Leboff and Tim Demuth's book, in 1907, 1908 and 1919), and from 1921 it was absent for several years on pocket maps designed by MacDonald Gill. The Thames-free 2009 version was the first time that the river did not appear on the Tube map since the Stingemore pocket map of 1926. The latest removal resulted in widespread international media attention,[19] and general disapproval from most Londoners as well as from the then Mayor of London, Boris Johnson.[20] Based on the reaction, the following edition of the diagram in December 2009 reinstated both the river and fare zones.

In more recent years, TfL has expanded its rail services, notably with the expansion of the London Overground network, which has taken over a number of National Rail lines and brought them into the TfL network, each of them being converted lines being added to the Tube map. Further additions have been made such as the London Cable Car and the boundaries of fare zones. Some commentators have suggested that Beck's design should be replaced with a new design that can incorporate the new lines more comfortably.[21]

Pocket map covers

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Since 2004, Art on the Underground has commissioned various British and international artists to create a cover for the pocket map.[22] These free maps are one of the largest public art commissions in the UK, with millions of copies printed.[23] Over 35 different designs have been produced, from artists such as Rachel Whiteread, Yayoi Kusama, Tracey Emin and Daniel Buren.[24]

Technical aspects

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The designers of the map have tackled a variety of problems in showing information as clearly as possible and have sometimes adopted different solutions.

The font for the map, including station names, is Johnston, which uses perfect circles for the letter 'O'. That is historic and the generic font for all TfL uses from station facades to bus destination blinds.[25]

Line colours

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The table below shows the changing use of colours since Beck's first map. The current colours are taken from Transport for London's colour standards guide,[26] which defines the precise colours from the Pantone palette and also a colour naming scheme that is particular to TfL. Earlier maps were limited by the number of colours available that could be clearly distinguished in print. Improvements in colour printing technology have reduced that problem and the map has coped with the identification of new lines without great difficulty.

Line TfL colour reference[26] Shown as[27]
Notes
Bakerloo Pantone 470 brown
1934–present
red
1933–1934
brown
UERL
Central Corporate Red
Pantone 485
red
1934–present
orange
1933–1934
blue
UERL
Circle Corporate Yellow
Pantone 116

yellow
1987–present
yellow
(black outline)
1949–1987
green
(black outline)
1948
originally part of the Metropolitan and District lines; not shown before 1948
District Corporate Green
Pantone 356
green
1933–present
green
UERL
Overground Pantone 137 orange
(double stripe)
2010–present
orange
1990–2010
maroon
(double stripe)
1970–c.1990

maroon
1948–1969

green
1937–1948

maroon
1934–1937
white
(red outline)
1933–1934
part of London Overground part of the Metropolitan line until c.1990
Hammersmith
& City
Pantone 197 pink
1990–present
maroon
1948–1988
green
1937–1948
maroon
1934–1937
part of the Metropolitan line until 1990
Jubilee Corporate Grey
Pantone 430
grey
1979–present
opened 1979; Baker Street to Stanmore section previously part of the Bakerloo line
Metropolitan Pantone 235 maroon
1948–present
green
1937–1948
maroon
1934–1937
shown combined with the District line 1937–1948 red
UERL
Northern Corporate Black
Pantone Black
black
1933–present
grey (CCE&H)
UERL
black (C&SL)
UERL
Northern City none white
(black outline)
c.1990–1998
orange
(double stripe)
1985-c.1990
white
(black outline)
1975–1984
black
(double stripe)
1970–1975

black
1937–1969
white
(black outline)
1934–1937
white
(maroon outline)
1933–1934
not shown since 1998; transferred to British Rail (National Rail) in 1975 orange
(black outline)
UERL
Piccadilly Corporate Blue
Pantone 072
blue
1933–present
yellow
(black outline)
UERL
Victoria Pantone 299 light blue
1968–present
opened 1968
Waterloo
& City
Pantone 338
turquoise
1994–present
white
(black outline)
1949–1994
red
(black outline)
1943–1948
white
(black outline)
1938–1941
not shown before 1938 thin grey
(main line)
UERL
part of British Rail until 1994
Docklands
Light
Railway
Pantone 326 turquoise
(double stripe)
1993–present
blue
(double stripe)
1987–1993
opened 1987
Tramlink Pantone 368 green (double stripe)
2017–present
green (dotted)
2000–2017
Opened 2000, not shown on the standard map until 2017
Mildmay Line Pantone 158 orange
(double stripe)
2010–Autumn 2024
white
(black outline)
2007–2010
not shown
1943–2007
white
(black outline)
1938–1941
thin grey
(main line)
UERL
now part of London Overground
Windrush Line Pantone 158 orange
(double stripe)
2007–Autumn 2024
white
(black outline)
c.1990–2007
not shown
1985-c.1990
white
(black outline)
1977–1984
thin grey
(main line)
UERL
now part of London Overground
Lioness Line Pantone 158 orange
(double stripe)
2007–Autumn 2024
not shown
1985–2007
white
(black outline)
1984
brown
(triple stripe)
1975–1983
brown/black/brown
(triple stripe)
1973–1974
thin grey
(main line)
UERL
now part of London Overground; only Queen's Park–Watford shown 1973–1984 (Bakerloo peak hours service)
Suffragette Line Pantone 158 orange
(double stripe)
2007–Autumn 2024
not shown before 2007 thin grey
(main line)
UERL
Weaver Line Pantone 158 orange
(double stripe)
2015– Autumn 2024
not shown before 2015
Liberty Line Pantone 158 orange
(double stripe)
2015–Autumn 2024
not shown before 2015
Thameslink Pantone 218 pink
(dashed line)
2020–present
white
(black outline)
c.1990–1998
orange
(double stripe)
1985-c.1990
white
(black outline)
1977–1984
thin grey
(main line)
UERL
part of National Rail; not shown between 1998 and 2020
London Cable Car Pantone 186 red
(triple stripe)
2012–present
Elizabeth Line Pantone 266 Purple
(double stripe)
2022–present
blue
(double stripe)
2015–2022
known as TfL Rail before Crossrail completion

Pecked lines have at various times indicated construction, limited service, or sections closed for renovation.

Station marks

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From the start, interchange stations were given a special mark to indicate their importance, but its shape has changed over the years. In addition, since 1960, marks were used to identify stations that offered connections with British Rail (now National Rail). The following shapes have been used:

  • Circle (one for each line or station, where convenient) – standard default mark
  • Circle (one for each station) – 1938 experimental map
  • Diamond (one for each line) – early 1930s
  • Square – interchange with British Railways, 1960–1964
  • Circle with a dot inside – interchange with British Rail, 1964–1970

Since 1970 the map has used a reversed (red on white) British Rail "double arrow" beside the station name to indicate main line interchanges. Where the main line station has a different name from the Underground station that it connects with, since 1977 this has been shown in a box. The distance between the Tube station and the main line station is now shown.

Contemporary maps have marked stations offering step-free access with a blue circle containing a wheelchair symbol in white.

Stations with links to airports (Heathrow Terminals 2 & 3, Terminal 4, and Terminal 5 for Heathrow Airport and the DLR station at City Airport) are shown with a black aeroplane symbol.

Since 2000, stations with a nearby interchange to river bus piers on the Thames have been marked with a small boat symbol to promote London River Services.

When Eurostar services used Waterloo International, the Eurostar logo was shown next to Waterloo station. In November 2007, the terminus was transferred to St Pancras International.

Lines or services

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The Tube map aims to make the complicated network of services easy to understand, but it is not possible to have complete information about the services that operate on each line.

Limited-service routes have sometimes been identified with hatched lines, with some complications added to the map to show where peak-only services ran through to branches such as that to Chesham on the Metropolitan line. The number of routes with a limited service has declined in recent years, as patronage has recovered from its early-1980s low. As there are now fewer restrictions to show, most of the remaining ones are now indicated in the accompanying text, rather than by special line markings.

Official versions

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The Tube map exists to help passengers navigate the London rapid transit network, and whether it should play a wider role in helping people navigate London itself has been questioned. The question has been raised as to whether mainline railways should be shown on the map, particularly those in Inner London. The Underground has largely resisted adding additional services to the standard Tube map and instead produces separate maps with different information, including:

Maps are produced in different sizes, the most common being Quad Royal (40 × 50 inches[29]) poster size and Journey Planner pocket size. The maps showing all the National Rail routes provide useful additional information at the expense of considerably increased complexity, as they contain almost 700 stations.

Non-London Underground lines on standard map

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Some non-Underground lines have appeared on the standard tube map:

  • On the early maps that used a geographic background, mainline railways were shown as part of the background detail.
  • Prior to its transfer to the London Underground in 1994, the Waterloo & City line was operated by British Rail and its mainline predecessors but has appeared on most Tube maps since the mid-1930s.
  • For a short period in the late 1930s to 1940, the section of the West London line linking Willesden Junction to the Metropolitan line's Middle Circle route at Uxbridge Road was shown as a service operated by the Great Western Railway and the London, Midland and Scottish Railway. The service was removed when the line closed to passengers in 1940.[14] This section of the line is today shown as part of the London Overground.
  • The North London line was added to the map in 1977.[30] Although run by British Rail and later by Silverlink, it was shown in British Rail/National Rail colours, but its appearance was intermittent and was omitted from some map editions over the years. In November 2007, the line was taken over by London Overground and changed to an orange double stripe. The semi-orbital route originally ran from Richmond to Broad Street and later Richmond to North Woolwich. The line runs now from Richmond to Stratford.
  • The West London line, Watford DC line and Gospel Oak to Barking line (former British Rail/Silverlink lines) were all added to the standard map in 2007, when they were taken over by London Overground, and all are shown as an orange double stripe.
  • The Northern City Line appeared on the original 1908 map as the Great Northern and City Railway. It later appeared as the Great Northern and City section of the Metropolitan Railway and then, from the late 1930s as part of the Northern line. The service was transferred to British Rail in 1975 and continued to appear until recently.
  • Thameslink reopened in 1988 after it had been closed for many years. It offers some relief to the Northern line, as it connects King's Cross St Pancras to London Bridge. Only the central sections between Kentish Town and London Bridge/Elephant & Castle were shown. Its appearance on Tube maps had been intermittent since it had been omitted from some map editions over the years, before it was re-added to the official tube map in December 2020.
  • The Docklands Light Railway, the automatic light rail system in the London Docklands area.
  • The London Cable Car, linking Greenwich Peninsula and Royal Docks across the Thames, was added in December 2011.
  • The first section of the Crossrail franchise, TfL Rail, was added in May 2015.
  • Also in May 2015, the Chingford line, Enfield & Cheshunt line, and Romford–Upminster line were added to the London Overground network on the tube map.[31]
  • Tramlink, shown in 2016 as London Trams, was included on the map from June 2016.
  • The Elizabeth line was added to the map in May 2022.[32]

When Transport for London expanded its London Overground service to include the East London line in 2010, the East London line, extended to Croydon, changed from a solid orange line to a double orange stripe. According to 2007 proposals, the addition of the South London line to London Overground was supposed to cause the southern loop to be added to future Tube maps in late 2010,[33] and, as of May 2013, it is up and running.

London Underground lines on geographically-accurate maps

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Like many other rapid transit maps,[34][35] because the Tube map ignores geography, it may not accurately depict the relative orientation and distance between stations.[36]

Transport for London formerly published several bus maps that depicted the approximate paths of tube routes relative to major streets and London bus routes.[37] The maps also show locations of certain cultural attractions and geographic landmarks.

Internet mapping services such as Google Maps offer a "Transit Layer" showing actual routes superimposed on the standard street map. A map shows Underground, London Overground, Elizabeth line, DLR lines and National Rail stations within Zone 1–2.[38]

Spin-offs and imitations

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A London Buses "spider map" on display next to a Tube map at Waterloo Station
a graphic of the Google logo drawn out in coloured Tube-style lines and stations
Google Doodle in January 2013 (150th anniversary of the Tube)
Diagram containing several differently-coloured lines that connect nodes, which are small hollow black circles. The lines are mostly straight but sometimes have curved bends at regular angles. A stylised light-blue river is included.
A Wikimedia schematic version of the Tube map. The locations of lines and stations are not geographically accurate.

The 'look' of the London Underground map (including 45° angles, evenly-spaced 'stations' and some geographic distortion) has been emulated by many other underground railway systems around the world.[39][40] While London Underground have been protective of their copyright they have also allowed their concepts to be shared with other transport operators (Amsterdam's GVB even pays tribute on its map).[41]

The success of the Tube map as a piece of information design has led to many imitations of its format. What is probably the earliest example is the Sydney Suburban and City Underground railway map of 1939. It follows Beck's styling cues, and in size, design and layout, it is nearly a clone of the London map of the late 1930s, right down to the use of the Underground roundel.[42][43]

In 2002, Transport for London launched a series of London Buses "spider diagrams" to display at bus stops around the city, conveying bus route information in a schematic style similar to Beck's design,[44] with straight lines and 45° angles depicting geographically distorted bus routes, coloured lines and numbers to differentiate services, and graphical markers to show bus stops. Tube and rail lines are not included, but interchanges are denoted with appropriate symbols by bus stop names, such as the Tube roundel. Unlike the traditional Tube map, the bus maps display services appropriate to specific transport hubs rather than a full network. Each map also contains a central rectangle of a simple geographically accurate street map to display the positions of bus stops; outside the rectangle, the only geographic feature to appear on the bus maps is the River Thames. The maps are also available for electronic download, with map collections ordered by London borough councils.[45] The bus maps were designed for TfL by the cartographic design company T-Kartor group.[46]

An isochrone map of the network was made available in 2007.[47]

In 2009, British Waterways produced a map of London's waterways in a Tube-style diagrammatic map, depicting the River Thames, the various canals and subterranean rivers in the city.[48]

Attempts to create alternative versions to the official Tube map have continued. In June 2011, the British designer Mark Noad unveiled his vision for a more 'geographically accurate' London Underground map.[49] The map is an attempt to see if it is possible to create a geographically accurate representation of the Underground system and still retain some of the clarity of Beck's original diagram. It uses similar principles, fixed-line angles (30° and 60°, instead of 45°) and shortens the extremities of the lines to make it more compact.[50] In 2013, Dr Max Roberts, a psychology lecturer at the University of Essex with a particular interest in usability, information design and schematic mapping, issued his own version of the Tube map. His design, based on a series of concentric circles, emphasised the concept of the newly completed orbital loop surrounding Central London with radial lines.[51] A map created to illustrate Tube-related articles on Wikipedia in 2014 was praised for its clarity and for including future developments such as Crossrail.[52][53]

In July 2015, a map of the network displaying walking calorie burn information for each leg was published by Metro newspaper.[54]

Cultural references

[edit]

The design has become so widely known that it is now instantly recognisable as representing London. It has been featured on T-shirts, postcards and other memorabilia. In 2006, the design came second in a televised search for the most well-known British design icon.[55] It is widely cited by academics and designers as a 'design classic',[3][56][57][58] and those cultural associations make London Underground not usually permit the design to be used or altered for any other purpose.[59] That has been officially sanctioned only on a few occasions:

  • David Booth's The Tate Gallery by Tube (1986) is one of a series of publicity posters for the Underground.[60] His work showed the lines of the map squeezed out of tubes of paint (with the name of the gallery's nearest station, Pimlico, on a paint-tube) and has since been used on the cover of the pocket map.
  • In Tate Modern hangs The Great Bear by Simon Patterson, a subtle parody of the contemporary map design, first displayed in 1992 in which the station names on the Tube map have been replaced by those of famous figures.
  • In 2003, to coincide with the publication of a book about tube maps from all over the world, the London Transport Museum released a "World Metro Map" poster that was strongly based on the London diagram and approved by TfL.
  • The shape of a pig seen in the lines of the London Underground map, from Paul Middlewick's Animals on the Underground
    Animals on the Underground is a collection of over 20 animal characters depicted using only lines, stations and interchange symbols on the London Underground map, created by illustrator Paul Middlewick in 1987. In 2003, the concept was used in a poster campaign by advertising agency McCann-Erickson to promote the London Zoo.[61] In May 2010, a children's storybook was released that used the characters, "Lost Property". It is the story of an elephant called "Elephant & Castle" who loses his memory and is helped by Angel the angel fish. The book was illustrated by Middlewick and written by Jon Sayers, and its official launch took place at the London Transport Museum.
  • Albus Dumbledore, a central character in the Harry Potter series, has a scar just above his left knee that is in the shape of a Tube map.
  • In 2006, The Guardian published a design based on the tube map, purporting to show the relationships between musicians and musical genres in the 20th century.[62]
  • On 11 January 2007, Lord Adonis unveiled a depiction of the map featuring the names of successful schools and students at GCSE level as part of the London Student Awards 2007.
  • The Royal Shakespeare Company produced a map in 2007 linking Shakespearean characters according to their traits in a diagram that resembles the map for complexity.
  • The game development studio Dinosaur Polo Club created the game Mini Metro, whose main mechanic is to efficiently connect stations in a strict Harry Beck style.[63]

Stylistic aspects of the London diagram, such as the line colours and styles and the station ticks or interchange symbols, are also frequently used in advertising.

See also

[edit]

References

[edit]
  1. ^ a b Kent, Alexander J. (1 February 2021). "When Topology Trumped Topography: Celebrating 90 Years of Beck's Underground Map". The Cartographic Journal. 58 (1): 1–12. Bibcode:2021CartJ..58....1K. doi:10.1080/00087041.2021.1953765. S2CID 236970579.
  2. ^ a b 1933 map Archived 19 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine from "A History of the London Tube Maps". Archived from the original on 15 August 2007. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  3. ^ a b "Harry Beck and the London Underground Map – The background to the designing of a 'Design Icon' – London Underground Map changing through time but remaining true to Beck's original principle – Designers & Designing – Design & Technology on the Web support resource for students and teachers of Design & Technology at KS3, KS4, A-Level and beyond". Design-technology.info. Archived from the original on 22 January 2013. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  4. ^ "15 subway-style maps that explain everything but subways". vox.com. 24 March 2015. Archived from the original on 8 April 2015. Retrieved 5 April 2015.
  5. ^ "Tube map – TfL Website". Retrieved 19 May 2024.
  6. ^ "Long list unveiled for national vote on public's favourite example of Great British Design". BBC. 18 November 2016. Archived from the original on 19 July 2019. Retrieved 25 December 2019.
  7. ^ "Concorde voted the UK's top icon". BBC. 18 November 2016. Archived from the original on 3 September 2017. Retrieved 19 November 2016.
  8. ^ "Underground art: London tube map designs". The Guardian. 20 March 2009. Archived from the original on 2 June 2022. Retrieved 8 February 2021.
  9. ^ [1] Archived 18 November 2016 at the Wayback Machine from "Colouring Inside the Lines 2 – Bryars & Bryars<". Archived from the original on 18 November 2016. Retrieved 18 November 2016.
  10. ^ Badsey-Ellis, Antony (2005). London's Lost Tube Schemes. Capital Transport. pp. 282–283. ISBN 1-85414-293-3.
  11. ^ 1920 map Archived 7 February 2009 at the Wayback Machine from "A History of the London Tube Maps". Archived from the original on 15 August 2007. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  12. ^ Train, Omnibus and Tram Staff Magazine, March 1933 – Garland, Ken (1994). Mr Beck's Underground Map. Capital Transport. p. 25. ISBN 1-85414-168-6.
  13. ^ Garland, Ken (2003). Mr Beck's Underground Map. Capital Transport. p. 19. ISBN 1-85414-168-6.
  14. ^ a b 1939 map Archived 19 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine from "A History of the London Tube Maps". Archived from the original on 28 January 2012. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  15. ^ 1960 map Archived 4 December 2002 at the Wayback Machine from "A History of the London Tube Maps". Archived from the original on 15 August 2007. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  16. ^ 1963 map Archived 19 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine from "A History of the London Tube Maps". Archived from the original on 15 August 2007. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  17. ^ 1986 map Archived 19 August 2007 at the Wayback Machine from "A History of the London Tube Maps". Archived from the original on 15 August 2007. Retrieved 7 February 2009.
  18. ^ Garland, Ken (1998). Mr Beck's Underground Map. Capital Transport. ISBN 1-85414-168-6.
  19. ^ "Thames missing | PRI's The World". The World. 18 September 2009. Archived from the original on 10 September 2010. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  20. ^ Patrick Barkham (17 September 2009). "New London Tube Map 17 September 2009". The Guardian. Archived from the original on 13 May 2014. Retrieved 9 January 2013.
  21. ^ Elledge, Jonn (29 May 2015). "London's iconic tube map is 84 years old. It's time to scrap it". CityMetric. New Statesman. Archived from the original on 20 March 2015. Retrieved 6 June 2015.
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Further reading

[edit]
  • Dow, Andrew (2005). Telling the Passenger where to Get Off: George Dow and the Evolution of the Railway Diagrammatic Map. London: Capital Transport Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85414-291-7.
  • Garland, Ken (1994). Mr Beck's Underground Map. London: Capital Transport Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85414-168-2.
  • Kent, Alexander J. (2021). "When Topology Trumped Topography: Celebrating 90 Years of Beck’s Underground Map" The Cartographic Journal 58 (1) pp. 1–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/00087041.2021.1953765
  • Leboff, David; Demuth, Tim (1999). No Need to Ask! Early Maps of London's Underground Railways. London: Capital Transport Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85414-215-3.
  • Ovenden, Mark (2003). Metro Maps of the World. London: Capital Transport Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85414-272-6.
  • Ovenden, Mark (2007). Transit Maps of the World: Every Urban Train Map on Earth. New York: Penguin Books. ISBN 978-0-14311-265-5.
  • Roberts, Maxwell (2005). Underground Maps After Beck. London: Capital Transport Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85414-286-3.
  • Roberts, Maxwell (2012). Underground Maps Unravelled: Explorations in Information Design. Wivenhoe: Maxwell J Roberts. ISBN 978-0-95726-640-7.
  • Roberts, Maxwell (2019). Tube Map Travels: Adaptions, Imitations & Explorations Worldwide. London: Capital Transport Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85414-444-7.
  • Rose, Douglas (2016). The London Underground: A Diagrammatic History (Map). London: Capital Transport Publishing. ISBN 978-1-85414-404-1.
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