A graphic designer spent three years painstakingly redrawing the London underground map with a new colour scheme and smoother lines.

Luke Carvill has taken it upon himself to recreate the iconic Harry Beck design in order to make the map more user friendly for Londoners and tourists alike.

The former Londoner, who is now based in Birmingham, started with using the Overground, which is usually indicated by an orange line, as an oval frame, encompassing zone 1.

He then changed the way the lines were coloured in and how prominent they are on the map, depending on how frequent the services are.

Mr Carvill said that when he lived in London he felt the tube map appeared a little bit clustered to tourists or new Londoners, which gave him the motivation to pen the new version.

Speaking to the Evening Standard Mr Carvill, who has previously worked with brands such as Boots and Papa Johns said: 'I wanted to make Central London clearer as the map is mostly relied on by tourists, who tend to start or end their journey in zones 1 and 2. I expanded these areas and framed them with an oval Overground.

Luke Carvill (pictured above) said when he lived in London he felt the map wasn't adapted for new Londoners and tourists

A closer look of the design by Luke Carvill which he claims makes it easier to find destinations

'I also looked at the visual hierarchy of the lines, solid colour for TFL and solid colour with white rectangles inside for National Rail is the current arrangement, the problem is someone could look at the map and think Overground services are comparable to Central Line services.

'So for the busier tube services I stuck with a solid colour, the less frequent TFL services such as the Overground and DLR got a lighter pastel colour with a darker border, and the somewhat infrequent National Rail services are shown as a hollow line with just a coloured border.'

Harry Beck (pictured above) designed the original London Underground map

The graphic designer even portrayed what the map would look like on the travel information boards across London

He highlighted that the eye draws towards the most regular services and therefore subconsciously helps people chose the fastest option.

However, even though Mr Carvill, who has an extensive portfolio, has spent hours on the map, he said he still needs to implement the cycle superhighways, riverboat services and disabled access.

Who was Harry Beck and how did he come up with the classic tube map design? Harry Beck was born in east London on June 4 1902 and began his career as an engineering draughtsman at the London Underground Signals Office during the 1920s. His job was to draw schematics for the electrical systems of the London Underground. Beck actually designed the underground map when he was unemployed – showing that he hadn’t been following the guidance of employer. He assumed that passengers using the Tube were more bothered about finding their way than geographical accuracy and prioritised the map to outline the tube network rather than the distance between destinations. Despite the map being iconic across the world, Beck’s original was initially rejected because it was deemed as too radical. However after a successful trial run, it was clear that it was what the public wanted. Advertisement

He added: 'The biggest challenge has been finding the time to do it! I've really enjoyed working on this but when you spend too many evenings trying to get multiple lines to pass under a white blob in a somewhat graceful way you start to question your sanity.

'I think maybe I've stretched the geography a bit too far, South London is incredibly condensed at the moment and quite a few liberties are taken with North London's geography.

'I was following Beck's example by prioritising line connections over line location but I'd like to strike a better balance in my next attempt.'

Not to take away from the original designer, Mr Carvill said he believed Beck's original map is one of the best pieces of graphic design in history, but admitted that he would like to see new designs.

'The network has expanded greatly since then and it's getting a bit cramped, maybe it's time for a rethink?

'It would be nice to see some non-TFL services included - Thameslink was on the map until 1999, it runs directly through central London and can be quite useful, yet it gets left off while the cable car stays on.

'I understand they don't want to show competing services in their map but it was probably quite useful back in the 90's.'

'I think I started trying to redesign the map about 3 years ago, but this is only my second completed map and I think I've been working on this one on and off for around a year. I might take a little break before I start working on the next redesign.'

MailOnline contacted Transport for London for comment.

The rest of Mr Carvill's work can be viewed on his website and you can follow him on Twitter @LukeCarvillEtc.