RochesterSubway.com : Rochester Map Typography

Rochester Map Typography

November 20th, 2014

Preface: I am a total geek and I have stopped caring who knows it. With that out of the way, one of my favorite things in the world to do is study old maps. And my favorite part of old maps are the titles! I told you, total… geek.

I’ve always been amazed at how much attention used to go into the details of these hand-drawn works of art. These days all we do is send a satellite up into space, or someone out to drive around and snap pictures of our streets – and don’t get me wrong, that’s pretty neat for other reasons. But Google streetview ain’t got nuthin on this. Go ahead, geek out…

(UPDATE: The image shown above is now available to order.)

1936

1931

1929

1925

1922

1910

c.1910

1908

1902

1890

1888

1879

1872

1863

1851

1849

1838

1834

c.1833

Psst… your glasses are sliding down your nose 😉

Tags: art, cartography, design, graphic design, hand lettering, map typography, maps, old maps, Rochester, Rochester NY, type, typography

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 20th, 2014 at 11:36 pm and is filed under Art + Culture, Rochester History. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.

6 Responses to “Rochester Map Typography”

John Zicari says:

November 21, 2014 at 9:35 am

http://photo.libraryweb.org/rochimag/rpm/rpm00018.htm
I remember looking at a “Romance Map” of Rochester every day that we had hanging in our house. I found a copy of it in the Monroe County Library website. I think it was published in 1934 and had drawings of local history of the area. Was fun to look at as a child.
Dave S says:

November 21, 2014 at 11:52 am

These are really great.
Have a higher res version of that first image? I’d like to make a T-shirt.
Jeff Freeland says:

November 21, 2014 at 2:54 pm

How clever of you to focus on the title blocks and not the maps… brilliant.
Ruth Nederlk says:

November 21, 2014 at 3:13 pm

What a wonderful site this is. Can’t get enough information so interesting Thank You
chase tyler says:

December 3, 2014 at 11:49 pm

Typo- you labeled one of the maps ‘1836’ when it says it was published in 1936.
RochesterSubway.com says:

January 26, 2015 at 11:58 am

UPDATE: We’ve got brand new poster prints of the 1910 City of Rochester New York title page. See it here…

http://rochestersubway.com/rochester_typographic_poster.php

Pre-orders before 2/7/2015 will get 20% off.

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Rochester Map Typography

6 Responses to “Rochester Map Typography”

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