Harry Beck Harry Beck Henry Charles Beck (4 June 1902 – 18 September 1974), known as Harry Beck, was an English technical draughtsman best known for creating the present London Underground Tube map in 1931. Beck drew up the diagram in his spare time while working as an engineering draftsman at the London Underground Signals Office. London Underground was initially sceptical of Beck's radical proposal, an uncommissioned spare-time project, but tentatively introduced it to the public in a small pamphlet in 1933. It was immediately popular, and the Underground has used topological maps to illustrate the network ever since. Prior to the
Harry Beck given its first full publication in 1933 (700,000 copies). The positive reaction from customers proved it was a sound design, and a large reprint was required after only one month. It is suggested by Degani (2013) that one of the configuration techniques employed by Beck was that of an "underlying grid". In some cases the vertical and horizontal grid units are equalised, but on the whole the grid is rectilinear. The result is a "relaxed grid ... which has a certain rhythm and charm – somewhat similar to the grid used by modern artists (e.g. Piet Mondrian's painting "", 1937–42.)"