The Progressive Tube Map

Inspired by the London Underground, the world’s oldest metro system and the designs of Harry Beck, I decided to translate the recognised genders and sexualities of contemporary society into a visual representation of a 2021 version of my Conformity Checklist - The Progressive Tube Map.

 

The tube map is comprised of six zones – Creativity, Gender, Birth, Ace, Inclusivity and Sexuality, with all six containing a total of 3 creative identities, 45 different gender identities and 38 different sexual identities, as well as ‘Other’ and ‘Prefer not to say’ for Inclusivity. Each station contains the label and I am hoping to create an interactive version with the definition read aloud, to allow people a better understanding of terms that many have not heard before or do not care to hear – or see displayed.

 

The process of creating the tube map took time and patience and was at times frustrating. The small details such as ‘should I curve the lines?’, ‘which lines should run next to each other?’ and ‘does that colour line represent what it should?’ became time consuming with the constant re-working the map would undergo to find the most suitable and logical answer. However, I soon realised that the process of these alterations was the work itself – much like societal norms had to change and adapt to new genders and sexualities over the years, my tube map had to change to accommodate their placement.