150 not out

 “Wow.” “Cool.” “Awesome.” No, not me doing my ablutions, but a gaggle of American visitors who on spying the giant roundels marking the subterranean entrance to Chancery Lane tube, broke into a fast trot with smartphones aloft as if in salute. It was love at first sight. They took it in turns to snap and film each other whilst trying to get as close to the roundel as possible. They were hugging it. This was their proof. They’d been here. You can’t argue with the roundel.

It’s a familiar scene, one I’ve seen played out many, many times with visitors from just about everywhere. Sometimes I may not have understood what they were saying, but then sometimes you don’t need to understand what is being said in order to understand what is meant. It’s about provenance. It’s about validity, trust and originality. Nothing says ‘London’ like the roundel does – not even red phone boxes or red busses – and so for our visitors it’s a badge of authenticity.

We may walk by it or ride on the system several times any given day without giving it all a second thought. But by jingo we’d miss it if it wasn’t there. Anyone who has left London and ‘gone-back-to-where-they-came-from’ in the UK, if only for a visit, will acknowledge that when subjected to the vagaries of the average provincial bus/train/mini-cab service. They say there are no alien lifeforms. They’re lying. They're here and they all work as mini-cab drivers in Barnsley.

We love it. We hate it. We love it. It’s great. It’s a f*ck-up. But it’s our f*ck-up, and deep down – around the same level as the Brunel tunnel – we have a soft spot for it, that network of arteries that carries the lifeblood of our city. That’s you…and occasionally me.

Every designer and art director wants to design a poster for the Underground, it’s a dream brief. Why? Because it’s the designers ticket to immortality. Design a poster for the tube and it becomes part of the archive and as such will be around long, long after you’ve gone and who wouldn’t want to spend eternity in the company of Abram Games, Man Ray, Tom Eckersley, Fougasse and the rest? Ask Brian Webb, Michael Johnson or David Pocknell, they know because they’ve had the privilege too. They’ll tell you that a brief from TFL or the London Transport Museum creates sparks (creative and otherwise) in any studio: the competitiveness!

The Underground has played a sizable part in my own career. I’ve been very lucky in that respect. In various past lives we’ve created visual identities for customer-facing information pieces, posters, training materials and a brand identity, signage, communications and information pieces for Crossrail in its original incarnation. (That’s 23 years ago, probably before some of you were born.) And, more pertinently, the commemorative poster for the exhibition marking the Tube Centenary: 100 years of electric underground railways.

The Underground is 150 years young tomorrow and there’s a fabulous exhibition at the Transport Museum as well as other related happenings. So if you walk by a station or get on the tube, sing happy birthday. And if your train is late remember that it could be worse. You could be in Barnsley.

http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/

http://www.ltmuseum.co.uk/whats-on/tube150

http://www.ltmcollection.org/posters/results/results.html?IXsearch=tube+centenary&button=GO%21

http://www.ltmcollection.org/posters/artist/artist.html?IXagency=Fine+White+Line