Tube Map Sticky Tape!

Now this is just excellent – it’s a roll of tape with a custom-designed map of the London Underground (and DLR & Overground) on it. It’s produced by the Seoul-based designers Jin Sol and Kim Ji-hwan, who make up the studio ZeroPerZero.

I particularly like this “1.5D” take on the familiar tube map. Constrained by the tape’s natural shape (i.e. long and thin), the designer had to construct a map where essentially all the lines run in one direction, while still including the intricate topological connections that are the key part of a tube map. It’s not quite one dimensional – that would be impossible for a multi-line map – but the second dimension is certainly constrained.

The design is a custom one, rather than being an “official” map repurposed. Colours vary slightly from the traditional ones, and all stations are shown with circlar dots – of different sizes depending on their importance. Lozenges make up interchanges – with the name of the station inside them for the major ones. Major above-ground London landmarks are included in gold – the London Eye, St Paul’s Cathedral etc. Lines bend back on themselves resulting in sometimes dramatic geographical distortions. Nothing as extreme as Francisco’s map – this map is intended for practical use as well as novelty.

The big question of course is what do you do with a roll of tube map tape? Well this will be ideal for wrapping presents for my more technical-minded friends, or alternatively sticking it in a notebook or maybe on a workdesk as a handy reference – here’s the desk of one half of Mapping London:

Thank you Steve for tipping me off about this, and ZeroPerZero for sending me a review copy, all the way from Seoul! (I also got a bonus roll with the Manhattan part of the New York City Subway system.)