Anatomy of Design

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ANATOMY OF DESIGN

Drawing comic parallels between human forms and man-made objects and

structures stretches back centuries, extending from Renaissance artists to

postmodern designers, and this penis-shaped subway map, created by Veit

Schuetz for an exhibit at the CAE Gallery New York City in 2000, is typical of

such metaphoric melds that are both absurd and logical.

Why sexual organs are so routinely conjured up in art is the stuff of

psychiatric colloquia. Sigmund Freud’s famously alleged quote goes, “Sometimes

a cigar is just a cigar,” but sometimes—in fact often—artists and designers do

see the strangest things in their mind’s eye and bring them vividly into focus.

Sometimes these are delusions, but sometimes . . . well, they may actually be

there. Given the serpentine nature of the New York subway, perhaps the

question is not why does Schuetz see a phallus in the intersection of train

lines and landmasses, but rather why not? And if he is just making it up, isn’t

his job as an artist to make the incredible credible?

When addressing the anatomy of design, few things are more

fascinating than actual human anatomy charts, both ancient and contemporary.

The amount of minute, graphic clinical detail the designer puts into creating an

accurate schematic of our species (indeed, any species) is astounding—and also

a bit frightening. Given the extent to which the body is jam-packed with

arteries, vessels, tissues, and organs, it is a wonder that the mechanism does

not experience more breakdowns than it does. But the idea that all these

components run more or less in sync, as in that anatomically illuminating

chestnut where the the shinbone is connected to the thighbone, is kind of

humbling. And this is not new. That Leonardo da Vinci, without benefit of X-ray

or MRI, was capable of rendering a profoundly viable anatomical diagram that

has been a model for both copied and revised versions up to the present day

is a testament to the ability of the artist and designer to compulsively provide

necessary information to all.

While anatomy charts are maps of the body, road and subway maps are

essentially diagrams of the skeletal and circulatory systems of cities or towns.

Navigation of both body and city would be nearly impossible without these

wayfinders. Even in the most primitive formats, they are so integral to daily

existence that maps are at the same time taken for granted and afforded great

status as designed works. In 1933, when Harry Beck designed the paradigmatic

modern map for the London Underground, he received only five guineas, but

today the map is not only still used (quite a bargain it was!) but also is the

model for others, including Massimo Vignelli’s New York City subway guide.

Maps are increasingly used by artists and designers to chart almost

everything, not just subway train lines but trains of thoughts and information

highways. They are literal, comical, and metaphorical. When wed to human

forms and functions, maps can also be ironic or droll commentaries on the

mechanics of everyday life. Of course, sometimes a penis-shaped subway line

is simply a penis-shaped subway line—and that is simply funny on its own

terms. For that matter, who ever heard of having penis map envy?

Penis Subway Map

Designer: Veit Schuetz

2000 CAE Gallery New York City, map

d,i: Veit Schuetz

Penis-shaped subway map created for an exhibition at the CAE Gallery New York City.

Anatomy of male genitalia

Artistic interpretation of anatomy

Subway maps

Visual interpretation of maps

2001 Title Sequence for History of House

on Channel 4

ad:Peter Chadwick d:Neil Bowen s:Zip

The origins and progression of House music;

the title sequence was a visual presentation

of this family tree, based on the Detriot

subway map.

1996 Vespa: Fifty Years of Vespa ad

c:Vespa

2

m

ad

c:

1987 The Tate Gallery poster/ad

d:David Booth

s:The Fine White Line Design

19th C Palmstick Seachart

Shows a roughly 500-mile area around

the Marshall Islands in the Pacific. The

shells and threads let canoe navigators

know when to expect islands.

1984–85 Yamanote Line

booklet/brochure double spread

ad,d:Richard Saul Wurman

p:Reven T. Wurman c:Access Press

From a guidebook for Tokyo one of the

series on various cities, tall-pocket size.

c1980s Charles

paper promotion

ad:Kit Hinrichs

i:Dave Stevens

c:Simpson Pap

1989 Abortion Map magazine spread

d:Nigel Holmes

The abortion map that never ran: Pressure

from researchers within

Time magazine led to

this image being withdrawn an hour before the

press deadline.

1980 A Map of Love Making map

a:Seymour Chwast

1870 A Map of Europe map

1617 A Map of Seventeen Provinces of

Netherlands from Germania Inferior

map

a:Petrus Montanus

Engraved and published in Amsterdam, 1617.

c6000 BCE Rock Painting

cw:Archivo Iconografico, S.A./Corbis

Aboriginal “x-ray style” figure found in the

National Park, Northern Territory, Australia.

2005 Durex: Playworld ad

s:McCann-Erickson

2004 Les Silos poster

ad:Stefan Sagmeister

d:Matthias Ernstberger

i:Aaron Hockett (3D), Gao Ming, Mao

s:Sagmeister Inc.

c:Chaumont, France

1926 Man as Industrial

Palace—by Fritz Kahn

chromolithograph

National Library of Medicine, Stuttgart.

1708 Ma'a'seh Toviyah drawing

a:Toviyah Kats