‘Zero’ Hans Schleger
London Underground Railways Pocket Map
1939 No. 1
Lithograph
14.5 x 20.5 cm
An early edition of London Transport’s iconic map, precursor to all other similar maps of other transport systems worldwide. The 1939 edition was designed by Hans Schleger, unlike the 1933 – first published – edition of Harry Beck. Beck was furious that his design had been given to Schleger and by 1941 responsibility returned to Beck.
Hans Schleger was born in Germany. After the First World War, he studied at the Berlin Kunstgewerbeschule. After working in Berlin, he moved to New York in 1924 and began to work as a graphic designer. He returned to Berlin in 1929 and began working for the British advertising agency Crawfords, where he met Edward McKnight Kauffer, who introduced him to Jack Beddington (the head of advertising at Shell Mex BP). He moved to London following the rise of Hitler and produced a series of posters for Shell Mex. During the Second World War he worked for the British Government. He later taught at the Chicago Institute of Design and subsequently designed the trademarks of the John Lewis Partnership, Penguin, Deutsche Bank, and the Edinburgh Festival.
Beck, on the other hand, was a technical draughtsman who worked for the London Metro Signal Office. After being fired, he created the first diagrammatic Tube map in 1931. Having submitted it to the Publicity Office at London Transport, it was rejected. However an updated proposal was accepted, being published in January 1933 in an edition of 700,000 pocket maps – most of which were consigned to the dustbin within hours, days or weeks. Those that survive are rare. Immediately popular it was adopted and similar maps have been used ever since by London Transport – and indeed many other rail systems worldwide.
Beck was inspired whilst creating an electrical circuit diagram to apply the same concept to the Underground system, in the understanding that passengers on the network were more interested in how the lines related to each other, than in how they related to the topography of the city. Beck worked on the map in his spare time, and was – depending on the story you believe – either not paid for his work, or was paid a mere five or ten guineas. These days his work is acknowledged on all published London Transport maps.