The London 'tube'

I was doing some research for my graphics project when I came across something interesting. A map of the London underground also called 'the tube'...


















Now that you've seen the picture and are wondering at it's significance, let me tell you that it was designed in 1931 by 'Harry Beck' who first realized that "when you are underground it doesn't matter where you are." He proceeded to distort the scale and in doing so created an entirely new London totally different from the disorderly geography of the city above. If the tunnels were modeled geographically, this is how the map would look..















The 'tube map' has since been copied widely by all major cities in the world in maps of their respective undergrounds. Until 1931 however, all maps were geographic and confused the users to no end. No wonder they lapped up the 'tube map' when it was released.. lol..

I was just wondering about how things that were previously unknown seem so perfectly obvious to us.. so much so that we fail to value the creative efforts of our predeccessors.