EmoriaCustom art prints and star maps
Maps · Collection 01

Salt Lake City poster, drawn from the real map

40.7608°N / 111.8910°W · United States

This whole grid was measured out from a single corner. In the summer of 1847, the surveyors fixed a starting point at the south-east corner of what became Temple Square and laid the city out from there, block by block, in squares of ten acres with wide streets between them.

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 Salt Lake City poster
What the map shows

Great blocks, wide streets, and a finer grid on the slope

Salt Lake City is drawn here in large squares. The main streets cross the sheet at wide, even intervals, north to south and east to west, and the blocks between them are big enough that later, narrower streets have been threaded through many of them without breaking the larger pattern. A few blocks north of the engraved point lies the square from which the grid was measured. In the upper right, on the slope below the foothills, the grid changes scale: smaller square blocks, narrower streets, a finer mesh that stops where the green of the hills begins.

Read on

Along the left side, the Jordan River runs north in a thin line of water edged with green, beside the heavy double stroke of the motorway and a wide band of rail yards, drawn, like all the railways, too pale to read. In the lower right, a large green rectangle with a pond is Liberty Park. Along the top, the foothills are drawn in green where they are wooded or planted, and a canyon comes down through them towards the centre; the mountains on every side of the valley have no relief on this map.

Compose your own

What suits Salt Lake City

The palette

The pattern itself is the subject here: large blocks held by wide streets. Choose a street ink that sets the main streets clearly apart from the narrower ones threaded through the blocks, or the great squares will dissolve into an even weave. Green comes in a few strong places, Liberty Park, the foothills along the top, the banks of the river; a mid-toned green keeps them present without crowding the grid. Water is thin, a river and a few ponds, and needs an ink deep enough for a narrow line.

The framing

Portrait, on the engraved point, which sits a few blocks south of Temple Square: the large blocks of the centre, the Avenues in the upper right, the foothills along the top, the Jordan River on the left and Liberty Park in the lower right. The Great Salt Lake lies far beyond the left edge. Pull back and the large squares turn into a fine weave; come closer and Temple Square and the narrower streets inside the blocks sharpen, at the cost of the Avenues.

The caption

The title, one line under it, the coordinates. Here an address is already a kind of coordinate, so many blocks south and so many east; the caption can carry yours beside the ones engraved below.

The sheet
Subject
Salt Lake City, United States
Palette
Grey stone
Map style
Clean and Detailed
Layout
Bar
Typeface
Lapidary
Framing
Zoom 12.0
Fade at the edges
0%
Format
Portrait
The palette of this poster

Grey stone

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

1847Measured from one corner

By 2 August 1847 a base and meridian had been fixed at the south-east corner of what was to become Temple Square, and from there Orson Pratt and Henry Sherwood began to survey the plat of the city. The plan consisted of ten-acre blocks separated by streets 132 feet wide. On the sheet, they are the large squares and broad streets of the centre; Temple Square is one of those blocks, a few blocks north of the engraved point.

1850sA finer grid on the slope

First surveyed in the 1850s as Plat D, the Avenues were laid out in fifty-six blocks of two and a half acres, each divided into four lots, where the rest of the city had ten-acre blocks of eight lots: it was the first plat to depart from the original layout of the city, and its streets and sidewalks were narrower too. On the sheet, it is the finer grid in the upper right, on the slope north-east of the centre, its blocks a quarter of the size of those below it.

1882A park of a hundred acres

The city bought the property in 1881 for $27,500, and Liberty Park was officially dedicated on 17 June 1882. Its hundred acres take up a whole group of blocks in the grid, and its pond dates from the early 1900s. On the sheet, it is the large green rectangle with water in it, in the lower right.

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 Salt Lake City

Crossing a street took a little longer here than in most cities, and a single block was long enough for a whole conversation. On paper the distances are exactly the same; only the walk is shorter.

Compose my Salt Lake City poster