Reconfiguring: The simultaneity and complexity of graphic design history

Henry Beck produced his first London Underground Map sketch in 1931(Figure 4). The distances between stations are arranged at more or less uniform intervals, a strategy more typically employed in the representation of time, rather than space. “Connections”, as Beck observed, “were the things.”¹⁶ The London Underground map is commonly held up, by designers and cartographers, as possessing a visual logic and clarity that makes it easy to interpret and comprehend. We can form a new understanding of this map, using it as a conceptual metaphor, to elucidate a timeline of graphic design history. Basically, this visual form of information design can be seen as a diagram, map, chart or guide. Whatever it is named, however, the primary issue is to substitute connections and relationships under the sequence and time flow of a linear timeline.