Just in time for Christmas, here’s a central London alternative tube map that has been made by ICON Printing, a custom apparel design firm. It highlights shops near the marked stations that have known strong environmental, sustainable and socially responsible credentials.
It’s quite a nice bit of cartography – all the regular tube line colours are there. Multi-line stations are shown with coloured circles for each line, in a row – a different technique to the official map and in fact more in line with the original Beck maps of the 1930s. We also like the inclusion of Thameslink – not a tube line or indeed run by Transport for London at all, but it did make it (back) on to the official tube map around a year ago, so it is starting to appear in these “third party” maps too. It’s even in proper Thameslink pink. It does however disappear between Elephant & Castle and Blackfriars. The new Northern line extension is on there too. Little icons show shop categories, so that, quite quickly, a shopper can hone in on (for example) all the sustainable kidsware shops. There’s just a touch of seasonal artwork scattered around the map to remind you that, in these somewhat bleak times for London and shopping in general, it is Christmastime…
You wouldn’t want to navigate the London tube network with just this map, and you’ll still need Google, or street signage, to find the shops after you exit the nearby station, but it’s still a nice way of framing a central London shopping trip around some brands and businesses that are the “good ones”.
(The map is actually called Conscious Christmas but i think it is more intended to be a Conscientious Christmas map. Hopefully everyone, even if they are shopping in big, less-conscientious retail chains, will be conscious this Christmas, at least until Christmas dinner when the alcohol may render them unconscious…)
Curated by ICON Printing, via JourneyFurther.