Design Classics

The London Underground Map (1x5)

Air date: Jun 29, 1987

By the early 1930s, the London Underground had become exceedingly complicated. The classic map used today was an unsolicited attempt to make the system easier to understand and use. It became one of British graphic design's greatest triumphs. It helped give London Transport an identity, and has been copied by transit systems throughout the world. It has absorbed all the additions to the system since it was first sketched out in a school exercise book not by a designer, but by an obscure draughtsman, Harry Beck.