EmoriaCustom art prints and star maps
Maps · Collection 01

Seattle poster, drawn from the real map

47.6062°N / 122.3321°W · United States

Downtown Seattle keeps the record of a disagreement. Its streets lie at a slant, parallel to the shore, and at each end of downtown they run into streets that follow the compass instead: two ideas of the right direction, still meeting along the same lines.

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 Seattle poster
What the map shows

A grid turned to the shore, and lakes joined end to end

Elliott Bay fills the left side of the sheet, and downtown is set against its eastern shore in a band of streets turned at a slant, parallel to the water. At each end the slant stops. To the south, along Yesler Way, it runs into a grid that faces due north; to the north, at Denny Way, into another. Where the two directions meet, the streets break off and start again on the new bearing, leaving a few small triangles along the join that show when you come closer. The heaviest stroke of the drawing, the motorway, runs from top to bottom just east of downtown, and at the bottom of the sheet the water divides around Harbor Island.

Read on

Across the top, the water links up from one side to the other: Salmon Bay in the upper left corner, a narrow cut to Lake Union, the lake itself above downtown, then Portage Bay, a second cut and Union Bay, opening onto Lake Washington along the right edge. Near that edge, a long green strip runs south from Union Bay. The hills behind downtown have no relief on this map; they show only where their slopes are wooded, in thin bands of green, and the railway along the bay is drawn too pale to read.

Compose your own

What suits Seattle

The palette

Water does most of the drawing here, and it takes a single ink for all of it: the bay, the lakes and the cuts between them. Choose a blue deep enough to hold its own beside the dense downtown streets, so that the chain across the top stays readable down to its narrowest passage. Green comes in strips rather than masses, the arboretum and a few wooded slopes; a soft tint is enough. The meeting of the grids needs no colour of its own, only a street line fine enough for the change of direction to show.

The framing

Portrait, centred north and a little west of the engraved point, which sits just above Yesler Way: Elliott Bay on the left, the slanted grid in the middle, the lakes and cuts along the top, Lake Washington at the right edge and Harbor Island at the bottom. Pull back and Lake Washington widens, but the meeting of the grids shrinks to a few lines; come closer and the triangles along Yesler Way sharpen, while the cuts leave the sheet.

The caption

The title, one line under it, the coordinates. On a sheet with this much water, the caption can name the one you saw from your window: the bay, the lake, or the cut where the boats went through.

The sheet
Subject
Seattle, United States
Palette
Toulouse brick
Map style
Clean and Detailed
Layout
Header
Typeface
Modern
Framing
Zoom 11.4
Fade at the edges
0%
Format
Portrait
The palette of this poster

Toulouse brick

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

1853Two plats, two directions

On 23 May 1853, the first plats of the Town of Seattle were filed. David Maynard insisted on orienting his streets to the cardinal points of the compass, while Arthur Denny and Carson Boren laid theirs out parallel to the shore of Elliott Bay. The two grids meet along Yesler Way, then called Mill Street: on the sheet, it is the line just south of the engraved point where the slanted streets give way to streets that run due north.

1917A lake named in advance

At a picnic on 4 July 1854, the settler Thomas Mercer suggested the name Union for the lake just north of the new town, foreseeing that this small body of water might one day link the larger lake to Puget Sound. The opening of the Lake Washington Ship Canal was celebrated on 4 July 1917, sixty-three years later: the Fremont Cut between Salmon Bay and Lake Union, the Montlake Cut between Lake Union and Lake Washington. They are the two narrow passages in the chain of water across the top of the sheet.

1934Two hundred and thirty acres by the bay

In 1934 the city and the University of Washington signed an agreement officially establishing the Washington Park Arboretum: 230 acres between the Madison Park and Montlake neighbourhoods, with a stretch of Lake Washington Boulevard running through it and its north end fronting Union Bay. On the sheet, it is the long green strip that runs south from the bay, near the right edge.

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 Seattle

Mornings by the bay, evenings by the lake, or the other way round: every Seattle day had its water. Keep both on the wall, and the streets that ran between them.

Compose my Seattle poster