Over at the Dabbler I write about Harry Beck, designer of the Tube map.
I love the Tube map, it's one of the best things about London. I have a print of Simon Patterson's Beck-inspired artwork The Great Bear at home. It's a nice piece, but I think now I'd prefer to just have the real map on my wall.
I used to have the great bear on my wall too, but the more I looked at it the more his seemingly arbitrary choices of people to represent stops annoyed me. I think there's more poetry and magic in the real names
ReplyDeleteYes, you want the Great Bear to be cleverer than it is, don't you? It's disappointing, ultimately.
ReplyDeleteThe actual Tube stations are, as you say, much more evocative and poetic.
Mornington Crescent, for instance. No wonder they named a game after it.
ReplyDeletethats exactly it Brit, you imagine that each connection on the line is going to be perfectly calculated and profound, but it turns out he's just slung a load of random names together
ReplyDeleteI've always been fond of the anagram tube map.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.anagramtubemap.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk/