These typo­graph­ic maps are the real deal. Although typo­graph­ic maps are not a new idea, few are cre­at­ed man­u­al­ly. Even few­er pos­sess the degree of qual­i­ty seen here. These maps of Boston and Chica­go were metic­u­lous­ly cre­at­ed from text by their design­ers — Andy Woodruff, Ben Sheesley, and Mark Har­row­er, of Axis Maps .

Accord­ing to the design team in an e‑mail, there were “tons and tons of design con­sid­er­a­tions.” The maps com­prise near­ly all upper case text for con­sis­ten­cy and to “min­i­mize white blank space.” Mul­ti­ple “type­faces, col­ors, and sizes” were employed to illus­trate the var­i­ous fea­tures.

Close atten­tion to detail was nec­es­sary while plac­ing the text over Open­StreetMap frame­works in Adobe Illus­tra­tor, said the team. For exam­ple, the team not­ed that the dan­ger of typo­graph­ic rivers cre­at­ed by repeat­ed text was avoid­ed on the maps — except where rivers actu­al­ly exist, of course!

The hard­est part may have been decid­ing when to fin­ish the project. “After putting so much into these, it’s real­ly hard to let go,” said the design team. “A labor of love” is how they char­ac­ter­ize the project on their web­site. Giv­en the qual­i­ty of the final prod­uct, that’s easy to see.