The Line of London
With my home city the centre of my new art business, London’s Art Seen, I am keen to incorporate some of London’s identifiable shapes into my branding. St Pauls, Tate Modern, the London Eye, the Shard, the Gherkin, the Cheese Grater and the Walkie Talkie are all buildings in London, their outlines silhouetted against an often grey sky yet always easily recognisable to Londoner and tourist alike.
In search of something simple, striking yet still ‘London’, my research has led me to look more closely at maps of the city. Similarly, lines are used to form postcodes, boroughs, roads, buildings and much more but still identifiably London in shape. If you haven’t seen it, Londonist Mapped: Hand-drawn Maps for The Urban Explorer is a wonderful compendium of maps of the capital. The designs selected map the capital through, for example, borough names, bridges, waterways and wildlife, parks, cemeteries, music, tube stations and buildings with more quirky examples such as Rewati Shahani’s use of several pigeons (another symbol of London) to create the city’s shape. As an art-historian, I should add I particularly like Caroline Harper’s London’s Miscellany of Museums. The publication and its illustrations are beautiful and the accompanying Londonist texts are informative and riveting.
Londonist Mapped clearly demonstrates the appeal of the map for all. In a week where Frieze and a self-destructing Banksy have taken up much of London’s art news, I was reassured to see the Dex stand at The Other Art Fair surrounded by people fully engaged, and engaging with, maps of London.
The Other Art Fair, October 07, 2018
To finish, as a lover of water I am particularly drawn to the one line always represented in maps of London. The unmistakable shape of the River Thames divides north from south and moves its way through the city, east to west, and back again each day. The river is a line, a route, a reflection and a barrier but it is also a beautiful fluid shape. It is London.
https://londonist.com/london/books-and-poetry/londonist-mapped-take-a-look-at-our-new-book