EmoriaCustom art prints and star maps
Maps · Collection 01

Phoenix poster, drawn from the real map

33.4484°N / 112.0740°W · United States

This map carries its own scale. The heaviest streets that cross it from edge to edge, north to south and east to west, fall a mile apart: count the squares between them and you have the distance from one side of the sheet to the other.

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 Phoenix poster
What the map shows

A grid measured in miles, and a first town in the middle

Phoenix is drawn here as a grid of grids. Heavy streets cross the sheet at even intervals, cutting it into great squares a mile on a side; inside each square, finer streets fill in at their own scale, some in tight rows, some in loose loops. Near the middle, a rectangle of motorways closes in the old centre, and at its heart, around the engraved point, a denser patch of short blocks marks the first town. One road breaks the grid outright: Grand Avenue, which leaves the centre on a long diagonal towards the upper left corner.

Read on

In the upper left, a green patch threaded with water is Encanto Park. Along the bottom of the sheet, the Salt River crosses from side to side as a thin line of water with a few pools and patches of green, in a bed left almost blank. At the right edge, the long shapes of the airport begin. The mountains around the valley lie beyond the edges and would have no relief here in any case; the canals that cross the city are barely drawn, when they are drawn at all, and the railway is too pale to read.

Compose your own

What suits Phoenix

The palette

Almost everything here is line: the water is thin, the green comes in patches, and the grid itself is the picture. Give the major streets a clearly darker line than the rest, so that the squares of a mile read across the whole sheet, and keep a light line for the minor streets, so that each square holds its own texture. Water needs an ink strong enough to show in the lagoons of Encanto Park and in the thin line of the river; for the green, parks and riverbanks, a soft tint is enough.

The framing

Portrait, on the engraved point, which sits in the first town: the rectangle of motorways in the middle, Encanto Park in the upper left, the Salt River along the bottom and the airport at the right edge. The grid runs on beyond every edge, far out into the valley. Pull back and the squares of a mile multiply, but the first town becomes a smudge; come closer and its short blocks sharpen, while the river leaves the sheet.

The caption

The title, one line under it, the coordinates. In a city where a place is often given as the crossing of two major streets, the caption can name the crossing nearest to yours.

The sheet
Subject
Phoenix, United States
Palette
Neon
Map style
Clean and Detailed
Layout
Header
Typeface
Modern
Framing
Zoom 12.0
Fade at the edges
0%
Format
Portrait
The palette of this poster

Neon

Sixteen inks, in the configurator’s order. It is one of the configurator’s own palettes: you will find it there as you compose.

  • 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

1870A mile by half a mile

In 1870 the settlers hired the surveyor William Hancock to lay out the townsite of Phoenix. His design divided a half-section of 320 acres into ninety-six blocks of lots and two more, kept for a city hall plaza and a county courthouse square. This first town was one mile long and half a mile wide, with Washington Street, a hundred feet wide, as its main street. Today it would be bounded by Van Buren Street to the north, Jackson Street to the south, Seventh Street to the east and Seventh Avenue to the west: the denser patch of short blocks around the engraved point.

1871Every section line a road

The federal land survey had divided the valley into sections one mile square. In February 1871, shortly after the townsite survey, the supervisors of the newly created Maricopa County declared all the section lines within the county to be public highways, so that every section could be reached along its edges. Those rights of way eventually became the layout of the city’s major streets: the heavy lines that cross the whole sheet, a mile apart.

1934A park around its lagoons

In 1934, with the acquisition of two hundred acres, a park was established, conceived by William G. Hartranft, president of the first Phoenix Parks and Recreation Board. It was built between 1935 and 1938, organised around meandering lagoons and canals, and today spans 222 acres: the green patch threaded with water in the upper left of the sheet, Encanto Park.

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 Phoenix

Anyone who has flown into Phoenix at night has already seen this sheet: lines of light running a mile apart, as far as the eye can see. Here it is on paper, with your square in it.

Compose my Phoenix poster