February 7, 2012, 10:11 am
The Tube as Watershed
By Henry Woodbury
Cartographer Daniel Huffman has taken Harry Beck’s map of the London Underground and applied it to river systems. The results are beautiful and illuminating:
Huffman explains:
I wanted to create a series of maps that gives people a new way to look at rivers: a much more modern, urban type of portrayal. So I turned to the style of urban transit maps pioneered by Harry Beck in the 1930s for the London Underground. Straight lines, 45º angles, simple geometry. The result is more of an abstract network representation than you would find on most maps, but it’s also a lot more fun. The geography is intentionally distorted to clarify relationships. I think it helps translate the sort of visual language of nature into a more engineered one, putting the organic in more constructed terms. Not every line depicted is navigable, but all are important to the hydrological systems shown.
Part of a continuing series:
- A New (Old) Subway Map
- New York City Transit Authority Graphics Standards
- Looking at the Real Underground
- The Tube as Template
- Update: The Tube as Template
(Via Greg Pliska, LearnedLeague.)
