Announcing the Portland districts map series

Posted: May 3, 2007

In my last post, I mentioned how there was one prototype of the glass San Francisco map that used the typeface Klavika, and while it wasn't chosen for the final product, I was very curious how it would work for a city map. Well the answer can be seen in the Portland map series project -- an architecture of location for Portland culture and business which covers some of the major districts of the city, including the Pearl, Northwest/Nob Hill, and Downtown.

Downtown Portland

The Pearl

Northwest/Nob Hill & the Pearl

While these maps may seem detailed, there is also a comprehensive map which stitches all those together and is even more detailed, as this small snippet shows:

downtown-detail-460px.jpg

This super-sized map is not online as I am reserving it for paying customers. The average person couldn't even print it at home anyway, as it takes a printer that can handle paper that is 36 inches wide by 48 inches tall. The map is well suited for use as a wall poster in a hotel, visitor center, gallery or building lobby.

Some of the features of this map series include:

  1. Each type of establishment has a unique, iconic shape and color
  2. Business locations are super easy to find using block numbers
  3. Specific places are identified by a unique acronym, reducing confusion
  4. An index lists all establishments in a district alphabetically within a category
  5. First Thursday participants are emphasized using an orange outline–so it’s easy to spot them on the map and in the index.
  6. Public art is identified, as are parks, mass transit, and parking.
  7. The street grid is accurately shown, so walkers won't be surprised by the distances between locations.

Any given icon and its associated label/acronym is unique throughout the system. This requires a namespace large enough to accommodate quite a few establishments. Each district has its own range of block numbers.

All in all, I really like Klavika for a city map such as this. Would I use it for a map of Seattle, LA or San Jose? I'm not sure... at some scale of city, the lack of a condensed version of the typeface would be felt more keenly.