The London Tube: celebrating an iconic logo

This year is the 150th anniversary of London's Underground system as well as the iconic Tube map's 80th birthday, and as such there has been a deluge of celebratory creations including a Google Doodle, a CSS recreation of the map, and the map's creator received a blue plaque. Now you can read about the famous London Transport logo design, the roundel, in a new book titled A Logo for London by David Lawrence.

A Logo for London celebrates the instantly-recognizable bar and circle, also known as the bullseye, which we reckon will particularly delight fans of design style guides.

With 250 colour illustrations, a small sample of which you can see below, this charming and informative tome charts the history and development of the symbol from the early 20th century to the present day, as well as exploring its wide-ranging influence on areas including fashion, pop music and counter-culture.

• Also read our Designer's Guide to London

Lawrence, research fellow at the London Transport Museum covers more than just the history of the logo. All London Transport branding from the 'UndergrounD' logotype to poster art is covered, plus photographs and other graphic material from the museum archives that in some places goes way beyond the assumed remit of the book (but is all the better for it) - it also features numerous inventive uses of the bar and circle, many of them previously unpublished.

A Logo for London by David Lawrence is published by Laurence King, and goes on sale in October this year.

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