EmoriaCustom art prints and star maps
Maps · Collection 01

New Orleans poster, drawn from the real map

29.9511°N / 90.0715°W · United States

Locals call the far shore the West Bank, and on this sheet it lies to the south and east of downtown. The Mississippi bends so far around the city that the compass stops being much help here: the streets take their bearings from the river instead.

You choose the framing, the palette and the words of the caption. The work is drawn from real data, then printed to order in the workshop closest to you.

Compose my New Orleans poster
What the map shows

A river that turns twice, and streets that turn with it

The Mississippi crosses the sheet in two opposite turns. It enters at the lower left, sweeps up past the old centre, bends hard around a point of land on the far bank and leaves towards the right edge. The city fills the outside of these curves. Along the uptown crescent, in the lower left, the streets splay outward: each one runs at right angles to the river, so they spread apart as the bank curves, crossed by long streets that follow the water. Where the river turns east, a small, tight grid sits against the bank: the Vieux Carré.

Read on

In the upper left corner, City Park makes a green mass threaded with lagoons. At the right edge, a straight channel runs north from the river: the Industrial Canal. Lake Pontchartrain, which closes the city to the north, lies beyond the top of the sheet. The railway along the riverfront is drawn too pale to read; the motorways, which cross the centre in heavy curves, are the darkest strokes of the drawing. The square by the river, at the heart of the old grid, is only a dot at this scale.

Compose your own

What suits New Orleans

The palette

Water is the whole figure here: a single ink for a river that crosses the sheet twice over. Take it deep enough to hold its own against the dense streets on either bank, because the double turn is what makes the city recognisable at a glance. Green comes in small doses, City Park in the upper corner and scattered squares; a soft tint is enough. The splayed streets need nothing but the streets themselves: a darker line for the major roads, a lighter one for the rest, and the pattern reads on its own.

The framing

Portrait, centred a little north of the engraved point so that both turns fit: the uptown crescent at the bottom, the old town against the bend, City Park in the upper corner and the Industrial Canal along the right edge. Lake Pontchartrain stays outside; reaching it would shrink the Vieux Carré to a few lines. Come closer and the old grid and its square sharpen, but the crescent leaves the sheet.

The caption

The title, one line under it, the coordinates. On a sheet where the river does the orienting, the caption can do the naming: the street, the bank, the side of Canal Street you called home.

The sheet
Subject
New Orleans, United States
Palette
Warm ink
Map style
Clean and Detailed
Layout
Overlay
Typeface
Cursive
Framing
Zoom 11.8
Fade at the edges
0%
Format
Portrait
The palette of this poster

Warm ink

Sixteen inks, in the configurator’s order. It is not in the catalogue, but you will find it in the palette library, filed under its material.

  • Background
  • Water
  • Greenery
  • Built-up areas
  • Roads
  • Buildings
  • Text
  • Motorways
  • Main roads
  • Secondary roads
  • Minor roads
  • Streets
  • Service roads
  • Paths
  • Railways
  • Borders
Compose with this paletteStart from it to make your own

Opens the colour workshop with these 16 inks in place: change one, keep the rest.

It will wait in your account, ready for any piece.

What the drawing tells

Three facts you can see on the plan

1718A city on the outside of a turn

The Mississippi reaches the sea through a series of wide turns. In 1718 the French chose the outside of one of them to establish their new city. On the sheet, it is the stretch of bank where the river swings round Algiers Point: the oldest streets are pressed against it, and the far bank fills the inside of the curve.

1722A grid of some hundred and twenty blocks

In 1722 the French engineer Adrien de Pauger laid out the streets of the city in a grid, forming what is now known as the Vieux Carré, the old square. It is still bounded by Canal Street, Rampart Street, Esplanade Avenue and the river, and covers an area of roughly one hundred and twenty blocks. The plan kept an open square near the river; come closer in the configurator and it appears, a small green rectangle at the water’s edge.

Early 1800sA street as wide as a canal

Canal Street began in the early nineteenth century along the path of a canal that was planned and never dug. Its great width, 171 feet, comes from the land set aside for that canal. It became the line between the old town downriver and the new district growing above it, and on the sheet it is the broad stroke that runs inland from the river along the upriver side of the Vieux Carré.

Before ordering

The four questions people ask

Can I choose any place, any date?

Yes. The search covers the whole world, from a capital to a hamlet. For the Sky collection, any date works, past or future: the sky is calculated.

What sizes do you offer?

From 21 × 29.7 cm to 84.1 × 118.9 cm, that is A4 to A0, portrait or landscape depending on the material. Every size is shown with its price in the editor.

What materials do you offer?

Four, from the barest to the most dressed.

  • Matte fine art paperA 200 gsm art paper with a deep matte finish: the bare print, to frame as you please.
  • Wooden hangersThe print suspended between two wooden hangers, ready to hang, in the spirit of studio posters.
  • The classic frameThe print mounted under acrylic glass in a slim frame, assembled by hand, delivered ready to hang.
  • Framed canvasThe piece printed on canvas, stretched over a wooden stretcher bar and set in a frame: a gallery presence.
How long does it take?

Making depends on the edition: 1 to 3 working days for Fine Art paper and wooden hangers, 3 days for the poster and the mounted frame, 3 to 5 days for the framed canvas. Transit depends on the country:

Delivered toIn transitIn total
European Union5 to 7 working days6 to 12 working days
United Kingdom2 to 3 working days3 to 8 working days
United States4 to 6 working days5 to 11 working days
CanadaNational deliveryGiven at dispatch
AustraliaNational deliveryGiven at dispatch

These are standard delivery times and remain indicative. For a set date, order two to three weeks ahead.

Digital editions are available immediately: the file of your piece can be downloaded from your account as soon as you order, and an email lets you know the moment it is ready.

All the questions

Your New Orleans

Here, nobody gives directions by the compass. Uptown, downtown, riverside, lakeside: four words that placed every house in town, yours included. Keep them on the wall, beside the river they come from.

Compose my New Orleans poster