Animals of London Underground

Animals on the Underground is a collection of over 30 animal characters made using only lines, stations and interchange symbols on the London Underground map, created by illustrator Paul Middlewick. The concept was used in a poster campaign by advertising agency McCann-Erickson to promote the London Zoo in 2003. Mr Middlewick’s animals were used in other campaigns as well. In April 2008, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) used posters of the Seal, Elephant and Whale images to raise awareness of seal hunting in Canada, the ivory trade and whale hunting respectively.

I got the idea when travelling on the Tube. It gets very boring commuting daily on the Underground, and I’d stare at the map as I waited for my train. After a while, I started to see shapes in the tube map, particularly animals. I sketched them down and Animals on the Underground was born. Since then, I have picked out over 20 different animals from the intersecting lines and stations on the map

Altogether there's a total of 38 variations, and incredibly, all the designs use the same version of the tube map.