Images courtesy of http://www.ltm.gov.uk and http://homepage.ntlworld.com, originally uploaded by Jimbo (Alan James Wellock).
One of the most influential peices of information mapping graphic design of the Art Deco movement was draughtsman Harry Beck's 1933 design for the London Underground system. After over a quarter of a century of trying to map an ever expanding tube system around the city of London, the amount of information needed to be shown had simply got too much for the orginal maps (bottom image) geographically proportioned layout. Becks solution was to disregard the geographical scaling in favour of a technique more associated with electrical wiring diagrams. He did this by opening up the centre of the map where most stations were situated and closed up the outer dispersed stations. This in conjunction with straight simple lines created a map that was easy to use (middle image) and over time instantly recognisable (top image).
The map over the years has been deveoloped in various states but still is added to, using Becks rules and guidelines, although he went out of favour with London Transport and was made redundent from the project early on. In generel the London Underground is seen as one fo the first 'corporate identities' and created the Art Deco style font, Gill Sans, for easy and quick reading.
With the maps fusion of Cubism, science and colour it is more like a circuit diagram than a map and even though it was designed without any interest in aesthetic beauty it is now seen as a design classic and hangs in the New York Art Gallery. Using 'ticks' for stations and 'blobs' for intersecting points, transport systems all over the world now use a similar style of design for displaying their networks.
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