There are few things around the city more recognisable than the London Tube map. First designed in the 1930’s by Harry Beck, it’s become the face of getting us around the city.
What if it was turned on its head and the design switched tracks, opting for a circular model? That’s exactly what University of Essex lecturer Dr Maxwell Roberts strove to find out, as he released a redesigned Tube map in his vision.
As you can see from the map, the circular design gives it a rather different outlook. The circular shape means that the different lines veer off in other directions, reflecting which part of the city they head through instead of the straight directions on the original map.
It’s proved to be a bit of a hit among Tube fans, too. Dr Robert’s map, which he took to his account Tube Map Central to post last week, instantly went viral, with 17,000 likes and over a million views on X within just 24 hours.
Speaking to BBC last week, he said: “I wasn’t expecting it to go that crazy. That’s the most crazy map I’ve ever released on social media.”
He went on to explain how he had created a circles map previously in 2013 as a bit of a joke, but was spurred on to create this new, all-encompassing map after TfL had released a circles map of their own for mobiles.
Roberts said: “Lots of people said to me, ‘TfL have borrowed your circles idea’. And I thought, ‘Let’s not complain, let’s go back to my original circles map and let’s make it better this time’.”
We now have the finished result, which you can use to consult, and Maxwell Roberts concluded his interview with the BBC by saying it was “quite fun” to compare it with the TfL map – which you can do now!
A TfL spokesperson has confirmed there are no plans to change the “iconic piece of world-renowned design” for the Tube we see now, but it’s always intriguing to see reimagined pieces of the designs we take as read every day when travelling on the Tube, and use a different kind of perspective.
You can find out more about the map and read more of Maxwell Robert’s Tube-themed work here.