Mark on maps

Our designer Mark has been drawing personalised maps. Lots and lots of maps.

Mark has long been our go-to guy for illustration and hand-drawn vectors. A year or so ago he was creating personalised maps for summer and Christmas campaigns run by our shopping centre clients.

These maps were fantastical re-imaginings of retail parks rendered isometrically to show the points where campaign activity was due to take place. All of the events – as you’d expect – were family focused so creating something that appealed to children was important but, ultimately, they were functioning maps and Mark’s flair for the fun elevated them from the mundane.

So having cut his teeth on T-Rexs stalking Tesco and Santa flying over Smyth’s, Mark began creating personalised maps for himself. His first was Stepps, the area he lives in just outside Glasgow. The style was duo tone – one block colour in the background and then black and white vector line drawings of roads and important landmarks.

Showing this around the office we encouraged him to put it up on his social channels and almost instantly he started getting requests for maps of other local areas. He moved on to Shawlands then Lenzie and has successfully sold a handful of large personalised map prints.

His current project is a map of Glasgow that highlights the myriad of live music venues around the city.

Next request Mark – pubs. Get to work!