EmoriaCustom art prints and star maps
Maps · Collection 01

Southampton print, drawn from the real map

50.9097°N / 1.4043°W · United Kingdom

A sheltered channel with deep water, and a tide that behaves unlike anywhere else on this coast. It is the reason for everything else, and the one thing this print cannot show you.

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 Southampton print
What the map shows

A point between two rivers, and a channel that runs out to sea

At the tip of the point sits the oldest part of the town, facing the water. Along both banks, cut into ground taken from the mud, lie the rectangular basins of the docks, and they are the most deliberate shapes on the sheet: every other edge here is a curve. Northward, building runs on without a break to the next town. Across the water to the south-west, the far shore is another matter entirely: hardly a street on it.

Read on

That far shore is the contrast the map is built on, and it works through colour as much as through emptiness: almost no streets, and woods that take a tint in broad masses. What you actually read is a quadrilled port facing a wooded bank. Elsewhere the losses are the usual ones: the medieval walls, which are among the best preserved in England and will not appear at all; the railway that runs at the foot of the liners; and the tidal mud of both rivers, so they will look full at any hour.

Compose your own

What suits Southampton

The palette

Water everywhere, and in two tempers: the long soft channel running off the sheet, and the hard rectangles of the docks along its banks. That gives one colour two jobs, and it works. The far shore brings a second surface: its woods take a tint, and the strength of their green sets the balance of the sheet. Deep, it makes that bank a mass that answers the port; pale, it keeps it in the background. Finally, set your ink so the basins keep their edges: they are the only right angles on a page of curves.

The framing

Portrait, channel running out at the foot and the point at the centre. The setting favours the basins: pull back and the far shore comes in whole, but the docks shrink to marks, and the docks are the port. The chosen frame keeps them legible and lets the opposite bank sit at the corner.

The caption

The title, one line under it, the coordinates. The name of a dock, a sailing year, the hour of a second high water: that last one is worth more than the others, because it is the only thing here that no drawing can hold.

The sheet
Subject
Southampton, United Kingdom
Palette
Atlantic
Map style
Clean and Detailed
Layout
Bar
Typeface
Modern
Framing
Zoom 11.4
Fade at the edges
0%
Format
Portrait
The palette of this poster

Atlantic

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 things that explain the port

1843The modern port is a series of dug basins

The first ships entered the Outer Dock on 29 August 1842, and it opened to traffic on 1 July 1843. Others followed through the century and into the next, each one larger than the last. Every rectangle you can see was ground before it was water, which is why they sit at odds with a coastline made entirely of curves.

2High water comes twice

An island sitting across the entrance of this channel acts as a breakwater and doubles the high tide, giving four periods of high water in twenty-four hours. It is the reason ships of any size could come and go here almost at will, and therefore the reason the docks were dug at all. Nothing on a map can draw a tide: this belongs on the caption, and it is the best line this print can carry.

1907The transatlantic trade moved here

In 1907 the White Star Line moved its transatlantic expresses from Liverpool to Southampton, and a dock was built for them that would later take a bigger name. It is from this port that the Titanic sailed in April 1912. The slipways and quays are still in the drawing; the ships that made them necessary are not.

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 Southampton

The gate you walked through without looking up, the quay where something enormous was tied, the far bank on a clear evening. The channel is the same for everyone. What you watched leave from it is not.

Compose my Southampton print