EmoriaCustom art prints and star maps
Maps · Collection 01

San Diego poster, drawn from the real map

32.7157°N / 117.1611°W · United States

The largest green on this sheet was set aside before the grid beside it became the centre of the city. In 1868 the town reserved a tract of hills and canyons for a park; a year later its centre left Old Town for the bay, and the new downtown grew between the two, with water on one side and green on 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 San Diego poster
What the map shows

A grid of small blocks between a bay and a park

San Diego Bay fills the left and lower part of the sheet, curving round the downtown waterfront and running off towards the bottom right corner. Downtown is a tight grid of small blocks laid to the compass, set against the water on two sides, with piers along its edge. To the north-east, a great green mass, Balboa Park, lies against the grid, crossed from top to bottom by a motorway and opened here and there by clearings; above it, the canyons of the northern neighbourhoods show as branching strips of green between the streets. Across the bay, the town of Coronado lies in the lower left, joined to the far shore by the long curve of the bridge.

Read on

In the upper left, a long, flat strip of land with a straight edge lies along the bay: the airport, with the narrow line of Harbor Island in front of it. In the upper left corner, by a knot of motorway interchanges, a few short streets at an angle mark Old Town, and the San Diego River runs along the top edge in a thin line of water. The heavy strokes of the motorways close downtown to the north and east; the railway along the bay is drawn too pale to read.

Compose your own

What suits San Diego

The palette

The bay is the largest mass on the sheet: give it an ink deep enough to hold the curve of the waterfront and the long line of the bridge across it. Green has real weight here too, because Balboa Park is a true surface and the canyons above it branch through the streets; choose a green that holds up over a large area without overpowering the water. The downtown blocks are small and tightly set, so a mid-tone street line keeps them distinct, with the darkest ink kept for the motorways that close them in.

The framing

Portrait, a little north-west of the engraved point, which sits at the heart of downtown: the bay on the left and below, the grid in the middle, Balboa Park to the right, Coronado and its bridge in the lower left, Old Town and the river in the upper left corner. The ocean lies beyond the left edge. Pull back and more of the bay’s outline enters, but the small blocks merge; come closer and the square on the engraved point appears, at the cost of Old Town.

The caption

The title, one line under it, the coordinates. Here the bay is on one side and the park on the other; the caption can say which of the two your weekends belonged to.

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

Azulejo

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

1868A park reserved before the city grew

On 26 May 1868, the Board of Trustees of the City of San Diego set aside a tract of 1,400 acres, nine of the city’s pueblo lots, as a public park. When the reservation was ratified in 1870, San Diego had 2,301 people and only 915 houses. The land long remained a fairly wild preserve of hilltops, canyons and arroyos; in 1892 Kate Sessions leased thirty acres of it for a nursery, undertaking to plant a hundred trees a year throughout the park. It is the great green mass to the right of downtown, today’s Balboa Park.

1869A centre that moved to the bay

In 1869 the administrative and economic centre of San Diego shifted from Old Town, near the San Diego River, to New Town, today’s downtown. On the sheet, Old Town is the small knot of streets in the upper left corner, by the motorway interchanges; New Town is the grid of small blocks that fills the middle of the sheet, against the bay.

1870A square in the new grid

In 1870 the developer Alonzo Horton cleared a piece of land beside his hotel, in the heart of New Town, for public gatherings; in 1895 he deeded it to the city. The square, enlarged since to 1.8 acres, sits beside the engraved point: at this scale it is only a dot, but come closer in the configurator and it appears as a small green patch in the grid.

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 San Diego

In this city the water was never far, and neither was the park. Put both on the wall, at the same distance from your door as they always were.

Compose my San Diego poster