The genius of the London Tube Map | Small Thing Big Idea, a TED series

Translator: Krystian Aparta Reviewer: Camille Martínez

Translator: Nika Kotnik Reviewer: Matej Divjak

The history of civilization, in some ways, is a history of maps:

Zgodovina civilizacije je, na nek način, zgodovina zemljevidov:

How have we come to understand the world around us?

Kako smo prišli do razumevanja sveta okoli nas?

One of the most famous maps works because it really isn't a map at all.

Eden izmed najbolj znanih zemljevidov deluje, ker v resnici sploh ni zemljevid.

[Small thing. Big idea.]

[Mala stvar. Velika ideja.]

[Michael Bierut on the London Tube Map]

Michael Bierut o zemljevidu londonske podzemne

The London Underground came together in 1908,

Londonska podzemna je nastala leta 1908,

when eight different independent railways merged

ko se je združilo 8 različnih železnic

to create a single system.

in ustvarilo enoten sistem.

Potrebovali so zemljevid, ki bi predstavljal sistem,

They needed a map to represent that system

so people would know where to ride.

da bi ljudje vedeli, s čim se peljati.

The map they made is complicated.

Zemljevid, ki so ga naredili, je bil zapleten.

You can see rivers, bodies of water, trees and parks --

Lahko vidite vodo, drevesa in parke -

the stations were all crammed together at the center of the map,

in postaje so bile stisnjene skupaj, v sredini zemljevida,

and out in the periphery, there were some that couldn't even fit on the map.

in na periferiji so bile nekatere izven zemljevida.

So the map was geographically accurate, but maybe not so useful.

Zemljevid je bil geografsko ustrezen, a ne preveč uporaben.

Enter Harry Beck.

Tu vstopi Harry Beck.

Harry Beck was a 29-year-old engineering draftsman

Harry Beck je bil 29-letni strojnik in načrtovalec

who had been working on and off for the London Underground.

in je občasno delal za londonsko podzemno železnico.

In imel je uvid,

And he had a key insight,

and that was that people riding underground in trains

da ljudi, ki se vozijo z vlaki pod zemljo,

don't really care what's happening aboveground.

ne zanima, kaj se dogaja zgoraj.

They just want to get from station to station --

Želijo priti od postaje do postaje -

"Where do I get on? Where do I get off?"

"Kje vstopim? Kje izstopim?"

It's the system that's important, not the geography.

Pomemben je sistem in ne geografija.

He's taken this complicated mess of spaghetti,

Vzel je to zapleteno špagetasto zmešnjavo

and he's simplified it.

in jo poenostavil.

The lines only go in three directions:

Linije gredo samo v tri smeri:

they're horizontal, they're vertical, or they're 45 degrees.

horizontalno, vertikalno ali pa pod kotom 45 stopinj

Likewise, he spaced the stations equally,

Prav tako je enakomerno razmaknil postaje;

he's made every station color correspond to the color of the line,

in barvo vsake postaje prilagodil barvi linije

and he's fixed it all so that it's not really a map anymore.

in vse popravil, tako da to ni več zemljevid.

What it is is a diagram,

To je diagram,

just like circuitry,

kot tokokrog,

except the circuitry here isn't wires conducting electrons,

samo da ta tokokrog niso žice, ki povezujejo elektrone,

it's tubes containing trains conducting people from place to place.

so tuneli z vlaki, ki ljudi premikajo iz kraja v kraj.

In 1933, the Underground decided, at last, to give Harry Beck's map a try.

Leta 1933 se je Podzemna končno odločila, da preizkusi Harry Beckov zemljevid.

The Underground did a test run of a thousand of these maps, pocket-size.

Podzemna je poskusno izdala tisoč zemljevidov, žepne velikosti.

They were gone in one hour.

Pošli so v eni uri.

They realized they were onto something,

Ugotovili so, da so na dobri poti, jih natisnili še 750.000,

they printed 750,000 more,

and this is the map that you see today.

in to je zemljevid, ki ga vidite danes.

Beck's design really became the template

Beckov dizajn je postal osnova

for the way we think of metro maps today.

za to, kako danes gledamo zemljevide železnic.

Tokyo, Paris, Berlin, São Paulo, Sydney, Washington, D.C. --

Tokio, Pariz, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Sydney, Washington D.C. -

all of them convert complex geography

vsi so pretvorili zapleteno geografijo

into crisp geometry.

v točno geometrijo.

All of them use different colors to distinguish between lines,

Vsi uporabljajo različne barve, da razlikujejo med linijami,

all of them use simple symbols to distinguish between types of stations.

vsi uporabljajo preproste simbole, da med sabo ločijo različne tipe postaj.

They all are part of a universal language, seemingly.

Dozdevno so vsi del skupnega jezika.

I bet Harry Beck wouldn't have known what a user interface was,

Stavim, da Harry ne bi vedel, kaj je uporabniški vmesnik,

but that's really what he designed

a točno to je zasnoval,

and he really took that challenge and broke it down to three principles

in res je vzel ta izziv in ga razdelil na tri principe,

ki jih po moje lahko uporabimo pri vsakem problemu v dizajnu.

that I think can be applied in nearly any design problem.

First one is focus.

Prvi je fokus.

Focus on who you're doing this for.

Fokusiraj se na to, za koga to počneš.

The second principle is simplicity.

Drugi princip je preprostost.

What's the shortest way to deliver that need?

Kaj je najkrajši način za predstavitev?

Finally, the last thing is:

In zadnja stvar je:

Thinking in a cross-disciplinary way.

Misli prek disciplin.

Who would've thought that an electrical engineer

Kdo bi si mislil, da bo elektroinženir tisti,

would be the person to hold the key

ki bo imel v rokah ključ,

to unlock what was then one of the most complicated systems in the world --

za razrešitev enega izmed takrat najbolj zapletenih sistemov na svetu -

all started by one guy with a pencil and an idea.

vse se je začelo z enim moškim s svinčnikom in idejo.