The iconic London Underground is celebrating its 150th year of operation this year. The “Tube,” which opened all the way back in 1863, still serves the city with trains packed to capacity at rush hours, shuttling people to places both central and more remote. Almost as famous as the trains themselves is the design that has sprung up alongside the long running system – so to celebrate the anniversary, the London Transport Museum is showcasing 150 Underground posters from the past. [Read more...]
As for useful readability, there are few examples that do it better than the iconic London Underground Map. Instead of placing stations in there actual location, or depicting the real path of underground trains, the maps simply cuts to the chase illustrating where people need to connect to their next train. Designer Cameron Booth has recently updated his wonderful US Interstate Highway map which uses the same smart design language to create a highly attractive and useful map. [Read more...]
Now this is taking the idea of London’s famous ‘Tube‘ quite literally: Kyle Bean, designer, model maker and all around advertising re-thinker has created the London metro map using colored drinking straws. His map uses the colorful tubes in a playful, elementary school craft-time like fashion, which when finished appears completely to scale and quite grown up… that’s because he’s built the design over a large poster of the actual map. His final design, lacking the station labels needed to navigate the system, is still highly recognizable for what it is, a truly iconic design tribute. [Read more...]
It’s easy to lose track of where you’re traveling on a subway: the train leaves the station underground, the windows grow dark and soon you arrive at your destination… but how far did you travel? Even the maps of the worlds subways, with their easy to read simplified formats, mostly lack any sense of scale for the underground system. These simple maps by Neil Freeman at Fake Is The New Real, add that missing element, cluing us into how big an area these people moving networks cover. Try comparing the maps of San Francisco and Paris… the scale of the results is revealing and surprising. [Read more...]
Looking like a fantastically complex version of the London Underground map, this information rich graphic details the many acquisitions and investments of the behemoth Microsoft corporation. At first glance it is quickly apparent that the multi-faceted company has its hands in just about every sector of business, and with the recent $8.5 billion purchase of Skype, their influence is only expanding. [Read more...]
In 1988, as Paul Middlewick rode the train home, he spotted an elephant on the London Underground. Ok more exactly he spotted one hiding in the lines of the famous underground tube map. Since then many other animals have revealed themselves in the lines, stations and junctions of the metro map, everything from foxes to rhinos to bottle nose dolphins. To see the whole collection of animals or to just maybe find your own, see animalsontheunderground.com
