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

Translator: Krystian Aparta Reviewer: Camille Martínez

翻译人员: Qikai Guo 校对人员: Yinchun Rui

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

文明的历史，从某些角度来看 也是地图的历史：

How have we come to understand the world around us?

我们是如何理解周围的世界的呢？

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

有一幅世界著名的地图， 它管用的原因是它根本不是地图。

[Small thing. Big idea.]

[细微处的智慧]

[Michael Bierut on the London Tube Map]

[迈克·布雷特之伦敦地铁图 ]

The London Underground came together in 1908,

在1908年，八条相互独立的

when eight different independent railways merged

伦敦地铁线路合并在了一起，

to create a single system.

组成了一个单一地铁系统。

They needed a map to represent that system

为了方便人们的出行，

so people would know where to ride.

地铁部门需要一幅地图 来描绘整个系统。

The map they made is complicated.

但他们制作的地图十分复杂。

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

你可以在上面看到河流、 水体、树木甚至公园——

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

地铁站点却全部挤在地图中央，

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

边缘之外甚至还有一些无法绘入。

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

尽管从地理角度来说，这份地图 十分精确，但并不那么实用。

Enter Harry Beck.

直到哈利·贝克的介入。

Harry Beck was a 29-year-old engineering draftsman

哈利·贝克是个29岁的工程绘图员，

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

他一直在为伦敦地铁系统工作。

他对此有自己独特的看法，

And he had a key insight,

and that was that people riding underground in trains

那就是人们都是来坐地铁的，

don't really care what's happening aboveground.

其实并不关心地上的情况。

They just want to get from station to station --

他们只想从一个站点去另一个站点——

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

“我应该从哪里上？又该从哪里下？”

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

所以重要的是地铁系统， 而非地理情况。

He's taken this complicated mess of spaghetti,

他接手了那乱的像意大利面的地图，

然后把它简化了。

and he's simplified it.

The lines only go in three directions:

地图上的线路排布只有三个方向：

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

平行、垂直，或者呈四十五度角。

Likewise, he spaced the stations equally,

同理，他把站点也等距绘制，

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

并且把站点的颜色 改成该线路的颜色，

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

经过这些修改，其实它就不再是 一份真正意义上的地图了。

What it is is a diagram,

它变成了一幅图表，

just like circuitry,

就像电路图，

except the circuitry here isn't wires conducting electrons,

只不过这幅电路图的线路 不是传输电子的电线，

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

而是容纳了载客地铁的管道。

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

在1933年，地铁部门最终决定 试用哈利·贝克的地图，

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

地铁部门用几千份 口袋大小的地图做测试。

They were gone in one hour.

结果在一小时内就被人们拿光。

他们意识到了人们的需求，

They realized they were onto something,

they printed 750,000 more,

于是又印刷了75万份。

and this is the map that you see today.

这就是今天我们见到的地铁图。

Beck's design really became the template

贝克的设计为我们如今

for the way we think of metro maps today.

广泛认可的地铁图提供了模板。

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

东京、巴黎、柏林、圣保罗、 悉尼、华盛顿特区等等——

all of them convert complex geography

这些城市都把复杂的地形图

into crisp geometry.

转变成了清晰简明的几何图。

All of them use different colors to distinguish between lines,

他们都用不同的颜色 来区分不同线路，

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

也都用简单符号 来区分不同的站点类型。

They all are part of a universal language, seemingly.

这些地图看上去 分享了一种通用的语言。

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

我敢打赌哈利·贝克当时 还不知道用户界面是什么。

but that's really what he designed

但那确实是他所设计的东西，

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

同时他也把这个难题 细分为了三项原则，

我觉得几乎适用于任何设计难题。

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

First one is focus.

第一，有针对性。

Focus on who you're doing this for.

要针对你所做设计的受众。

The second principle is simplicity.

第二， 要简洁。

What's the shortest way to deliver that need?

找出能满足需要的最直接的方式。

Finally, the last thing is:

最后，第三条：

Thinking in a cross-disciplinary way.

从多方面去思考一个问题。

Who would've thought that an electrical engineer

没有谁会想到，世界上 最复杂的系统之一所面临的

would be the person to hold the key

难题的解决方案，

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

竟然出自一个电子工程师之手——

这些都开始于一个人， 一支笔，和灵光一现。

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