Hand-Drawn Maps
Capture the places that matter
Custom illustrated maps made with a designer’s eye and a landscape architect’s understanding of place.
I create custom hand drawn maps for brands, places and people.
Most designers can make a map look beautiful. I can also make maps that are accurate, professionally considered and true to how a place feels. This is because I trained and have worked as both a graphic designer and a landscape architect. This combination is unusual. It means I bring something different to every map I make.
Click on these links to find out more about my place making maps and illustrated business maps.
Place Making Maps
Clarity, character and visual impact
For professional place makers, such as Landscape Architects and Urban Designers, detailed, hand-drawn, illustrated maps can communicate important information clearly and creatively, making complex ideas easy to understand.
With my background in both graphic design and landscape architecture, I understand the nuance and needs of a custom site plan or map and will work closely with you to create a map that draws viewers in and engages people in an idea as well as leaving a lasting impression.
A hand-drawn map can still have all the necessary technical elements but by design is a freer, more emotional piece of work created to be easily understood by a wide audience.
Map visuals can further be used across reports, consultations and project promotion to create a cohesive and clear message from the design team.
Custom maps and site plans can:
Enhance a project’s visual appeal
Make site plans easier to understand
Communicate directly to non-professionals
Build a story behind the design
Stand out from competitors
Clarity & Character
A hand-drawn map can help to promote an idea to a client, community or stakeholder. Hand-drawn maps are appealing, specific and characterful. They soften technical details and are drawn to purposefully highlight key elements of a project whilst setting the work in the wider landscape.
Illustrated Maps for Businesses
Distinctive & Engaging
A custom illustrated map is a distinctive way to showcase your business. A map can be used in a variety of ways - to highlight your location, guide visitors around a site, as a way finding device, or to communicate your brand story visually.
Whether used in print, digital media or presentations, an illustrated map creates engaging, memorable content that helps your business stand out.
The illustrated maps I design create memorable, branded visual material that can be used widely as marketing collateral across social media and printed literature.
Commercial Maps can:
Enhance business brand
Visually delight clients and customers
Provide way finding directions
Become great social media content
Personalise a business
Selected Case Studies
Project map detailing biodiversity measures being implemented across a range of sites in central London.
COMMERCIAL MAP COMMISSION
Place Making Map
Brief: Create a hand-drawn illustrated map that sparks conversation and draws viewers in.
Turkington Martin, a firm of Landscape Architects based in London commissioned me to create a hand-drawn map depicting the work they were doing to ‘green’ residential properties within The Grosvenor Estate.
The map needed to locate the buildings in central London, depict the biodiversity work happening in each of the blocks and crucially attract attention to the project.
I spent time drawing and redrawing the base map so that the sites were the focus of the illustration whilst sitting comfortably in the wider London surrounding. Once the base map was resolved, I experimented with various ways of depicting the buildings so that the biodiversity work could be communicated logically and clearly.
Finally, I added in colour and peripheral detail such as London buses and London landmarks.
Commissioned by Turkington Martin, London
Map created for W42ST Magazine capturing local businesses and their location in the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood
COMMERCIAL MAP COMMISSION
Neighbourhood Business Map
Brief: Create a hand-drawn illustrated map that locates businesses within the Hell’s Kitchen neighbourhood.
W42ST magazine in New York commissioned me to create a hand-drawn map of Hell’s Kitchen. The purpose of the map was to locate businesses who were advertising in the magazine. The map was printed and formed a pull-out section of W42ST which was distributed monthly in the neighbourhood. The map was constantly evolving as advertisers came onboard.
The map required the clear communication of a hefty amount of information. The drawings of New York landmarks around the edge helped to situate the map.
Commissioned by W42ST, New York.
"Sally did an amazing job working with the team at W42ST to produce the KTCHLST illustrated map. The ability to take a brief that needed a detailed map of the area with a creative flair and turn out such a beautiful illustration is remarkable"
- Phil, W42AT Magazine, New York
Have a map in mind?
Tell me about it, I’ll come back to you within two working days with a personalised quote.