London Underground Roundel

The London Underground Roundel is a marvelous, timeless logo. John Brownlee, in Fast Company's Co.Design, introduces a new book about it. 

The Amazing History Of London's Most Enduring Logo

FOR OVER A CENTURY, THE LONDON UNDERGROUND ROUNDEL HAS GOTTEN INTO THE DNA OF SOME OF THE WORLD'S TOP DESIGNERS. A NEW BOOK EXPLORES HOW.

It is hard to imagine a simpler symbol than the one that brands every London bus, subway, and station, the London Underground Roundel. Although little more than a dark blue bar placed across two red-rimmed semi-circles, the Roundel has evolved from humble signage meant to tell passengers where to get off the train to an emblem that represents not just a metropolis but its people as well. The Roundel's incredible journey is being freshly explored in Logo for London, a beautiful, lavishly illustrated new book. Published by Laurence King, Logo for London tracks the Roundel's cultural, artistic, and social importance over the last hundred years as it became the world's most well-known transportation symbol.

"Like many millions of other people commuting through London, I saw this symbol at every station countless times per day," says Logo for London author David Lawrence. A design historian stationed at the University at Kingston University, Lawrence began to wonder how such an abstract symbol as the London Underground Roundel became an important part of the life of the city. "I rather foolishly made myself the man responsible for trying to interpret it for as wide an audience as possible." After 15 years spent poring through city archives, papers, and ephemera for any mention of the Roundel, Lawrence's book is the definitive history of an important cultural icon.

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