zastica

Today Yesterday, I stumbled on a post by someone on reddit/r/seattle about a map of north tacoma that he made, using typography to draw out the map. Typographic maps are not a new thing, but can be very beautiful when done properly. For some examples, check out http://www.axismaps.com/typographic.php.

This is what the big map looks like:

It’s pretty incredible. Here’s a couple more close crops:

This poster is available on zazzle.com to purchase, in multiple sizes. Prices start at $18 for a small version, and go all the way up to $63 for a massive 52”×33” poster. I’m planning on getting one for myself, because it’s just too cool to pass up.

Purchase link

Edit: Also, since yesterday, I noticed the author signed up on feedtacoma.com and started a discussion about this project here

Full disclosure: I have no affiliation with the author, nor do I receive any kickbacks from zazzle, I just think this is double-plus awesome.

I managed to snag one of Ligature, Loop, and Stem’s Ampersand broadsides. (Broadside is just another word for poster. It’s a letterpress printing thing.) The Ampersand print was a limited edition of 25, with ampersands (the ligature of the characters e and t, like in et cetera. It means ‘and’.) from different fonts, showcasing the different styles of the character.

Overall, the quality of the print is very good. Entire print is debossed, and the registration of the ink and the debossment is perfect — meaning that either the inking and the debossment was done at the same time, or that the printer was very very good. Either way, very good quality. It also has a very nice wax seal on the bottom, and the number 6 of 25 written in pencil.

One of the top edges of the print was mangled in the shipping process just a little bit, but some smoothing out made it much less noticeable. I wish that it was signed, however. The wax seal is a good addition, but for a print, it doesn’t replace a printer’s (or artist’s) signature.

The whole shebang:

Close up of the Ampersand text

The wax and number

Detail of some of the ampersands:

The corner that got mucked up. The damage is in the top right corner. It’s not too bad, and is actually prett hard to see in this photo.

Anyone know what Butter Label is? Their site was not terribly descriptive…