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London Underground map: where

Contents: who | what | where | when | how | why

Beck was convinced by friends to try again and in 1932 the London Underground publicity office ran a trial of 500 copies in a central station which was applauded by the travelling public (Last, 1987). Production of the map started in January 1933 with 750,000 copies and has remained essentially unchanged since.

The map was considered unconventional at the time because previous maps followed the layout of the land. Beck saw obvious problems with this approach as the transport system expanded and the complexity grew (Garland, 1994), and developed a piece of design which made the transition from map to diagram.

That it is now called a planner is testament to its functionality and acceptance.

The map also appeared as another tool in Pick's corporate identity concept at the time - in which passenger goodwill, clear information and design were all intrinsically linked.

There were similar movements of amalgamation between design and industry in Berlin around 1907 - the Deutscher Werkbund through Herman Muthesius and Harry Graf Kessler was a cooperation with industrialisaiton and used early modern and Art Nouveau to create the industry-led style called Plakatstil (Chwast & Heller, 1998).

But the marriage of design and industry was difficult with many conservative British fearing too rapid a change into industrialisation (Passingham, 1972).

Pick worked to allay these fears using poster propaganda which made customers feel warm and comfortable with the Underground. Beck's underground map seemed to support these aims at the right time.