

It immediately became popular and the reaction of the travelling customers proved it to be sound design.

During 1933 the map was tentatively introduced to the public in a small pamphlet (700,000 copies).

He clarified a complex system to produce a simple, easy to follow diagram.īeck first submitted his idea for a simpler map to Frank Pick of London Underground in 1931 but it was considered too radical as it did not show distances relative from any one station to the others. All the stations were more or less equally spaced. This diagram looks more like an electrical schematic than a true map. He started to sketch the idea in his spare and finally came up with his famous diagram: When Beck designed the iconic London Tube map in 1931, he was partly inspired by circuit board schematics that he used to work with as an engineering draftsman. He came up with the radical idea of presenting the ever-expanding network as a circuit diagram rather than a geographical map.
#The london underground map designer how to#
Harry Beck an English engineering draftsman at the London Underground Signals Office believed that passengers riding the trains were not too bothered about the geographical accuracy, but were more interested in how to get from one station to another, and where to change. Before 1933 London’s various underground lines had been laid out geographically over the roadway of a city map.
