The iconic London Tube map has been reimagined and deconstructed to form a series of artworks and posters, as well as providing another visual theme for the SneakHeads® figures.
The artwork shown above began its journey of development in 1994, the year I started my first job at a firm of Consulting Engineers in Clerkenwell, London. I would commute in from South East London and spent countless hours over the course of 8 years on the London Underground – "the Tube" as it's commonly known.
As a youngster I would marvel at the Underground Tube map – a design classic and the basis of many metro maps around the world. The original map design was conceived by Harry Beck, an electrical engineer in 1931.
Now, 30 years on from the London of 1994, I am incredibly proud to have completed a series of original artworks, celebrating and inspired by that world-famous design icon. These artworks are very personal and in a sense serve as a visual narrative for the work I have produced and the connections I have made since those early days. —WL
The Tube Odyssey posters
The collection is a representation of the journeys and connections we make, the rich diversity of people we are often surrounded by and, at times, how alone we can feel, even in a bustling city like London.
Preorders are now available for the Notting Hill Gate version as shown. The full range of 200+ posters will be available very soon, with an open edition available to our community members on remx.
The process
- Redraw the existing network as a vector graphic
- Increase the route line weights by 10x
- Adjust line placements for visibility
- Rasterize the new map artwork
- Convert the map into a mosaic of square pixels
- The line colours increase to include blurred edge tones
- Round the corners of each square pixel
- Zoom into a 7 pixel square detail (representing the 7 days of the week)
- Centre the middle pixel on the location of each Tube station
- Produce each Tube stop as a 7x7 grid of coloured circles
- Create a unique poster using the coloured grid and station name
- Repeat many times
#posters #art #london #interiordesign #wallart