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In 1931 Harry Beck, a draughtsman who had worked for the London Underground, redrew the Tube map as a diagram: straight lines, fixed angles and evenly spaced stations, ignoring real distances. Passengers found it far easier to read, and most metro maps today follow his idea.

London Transport Museum / TfL

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Beck had worked as an engineering draughtsman in the Underground's signals office, drawing electrical circuit diagrams, and he designed the map in 1931 while laid off from that job. The Underground's managers were at first sceptical of an uncommissioned design that did not show real distances, and tried it only in a small pamphlet in 1933. Passengers liked it at once. Beck was paid ten guineas for the artwork and five more for the poster version (a guinea was one pound and one shilling), and he went on revising the map until 1960. Every Tube map now carries a line crediting his original 1931 design.

Türkçe oku
Londra Metrosu'nun eski teknik ressamı Harry Beck, 1931'de metro haritasını bir şemaya çevirdi: Hatları düz çizdi, belirli açılar kullandı, istasyonları gerçek uzaklıklara bakmadan eşit aralıklarla dizdi. Yolcular haritayı çok daha kolay okudu; bugün metro haritalarının çoğu onun fikrini izler.

Beck, metronun sinyal bürosunda elektrik devre şemaları çizen bir teknik ressamdı; haritayı 1931'de, bu işinden çıkarıldığı dönemde tasarladı. Metro yöneticileri, kimsenin sipariş etmediği ve gerçek uzaklıkları göstermeyen bu tasarıma önce kuşkuyla baktı ve onu 1933'te yalnızca küçük bir broşürde denedi. Yolcular haritayı hemen benimsedi. Beck'e çizim için on, afiş hâli için beş gine ödendi (gine, eski bir İngiliz para birimiydi); o da haritayı 1960'a kadar geliştirmeyi sürdürdü. Bugün her Londra metro haritasında, tasarımın Beck'in 1931'deki özgün çiziminden geliştirildiğini belirten bir satır yer alır.

Sources and further reading

Background reading: Tube map
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