Design
What Makes London's Underground Logo So Special?
Design historian David Lawrence's new book explores its history and how it came to be synonymous with the city it serves.
Few public transit logos are as instantly recognizable as the bar and disc used by Transport for London.
The logo first emerged in 1905. It debuted as a bar crossing through a wheel with wings, symbolic of the city's newly motorized buses. A more refined version, similar to the one we're familiar with today, debuted at Underground stations three years later as an attempt to make station names easier to recognize on ad-covered platforms. It was dubbed the "roundel" in 1972.