Rejected Tube Map Cover Designs

In 2007, London Underground approached Turner Prize winning artist, Jeremy Deller, to design a new cover for the Tube map. If they'd done their homework this wouldn't have made much sense. As Deller is a "militant cyclist". However, not wanting to turn away a commission, he took the familiar colours of the Tube lines and turned them into a bicycle. Thinking that getting on a bike  wasn't perhaps the best advert for the Tube, London Underground turned Deller's design down. He produced a portrait of one of TfL's longest serving staff members instead.


You can see the rejected cover on display towards the end of Deller's retrospective at the Hayward Gallery, Joy in People, under the does-what-it-says-on-the-tin Ronseal title "Rejected Tube Map Cover Illustration"  which opened on 22nd February and runs until 13th May 2012 . 

I also love this mock up of a 2012 Olympics London Underground Map Cover by Max Roberts. Another illustration that's unlikely to see the light of day as a physical Tube map cover, as the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games are strict about the usage of their rings.


Max says "The logo itself doesn't quite match the way in which the official rings are linked, this is because its actually based on Henry Beck's 60-degree map interchanges of 1940."

I await the actual Tube Map Cover that will inevitably be produced for the Olympics with baited breath.  Perhaps Wenlock & Mandeville will be decked out in Tube line colour scarfs?  Maybe the official logo will be repurposed with the jagged edges of the much maligned image transforming into a Tube Map?  One can only wonder.

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