I’ve never been a big geog­ra­phy buff. That giant mul­ti­col­ored US map from ele­men­tary school still gives me anx­i­ety, mostly because I couldn’t (… can’t) tell the dif­fer­ence between all those square states out West. But recently I came across a cou­ple of really well-designed maps that caught my eye.

I love the mod­ern but also slightly 70s feel of the map designs from These Are Things. The bright col­ors and large type would prob­a­bly help me actu­ally remem­ber those Western states. Apparently the design­ers are cur­rently work­ing on a new set of posters, so I’ll be on the look­out for those!

I noticed Ork Posters a while back and I was pleased to see when I vis­ited their site that they have expanded well beyond the Manhattan map that I liked in the first place.

At first glance these are fun look­ing posters using type, but if you look closely it really is a par­tic­u­larly impres­sive act of skilled typog­ra­phy, get­ting all those details and tiny neigh­bor­hoods accu­rately. The designs are also avail­able in a vari­ety of col­ors so you can pick what works best with your décor.

This is only a sam­pling of their work – other cities include Philadelphia, Seattle, and Chicago. They’ve even ven­tured into anatomy with a map of the human brain! Be sure to visit the site to look at these at a larger size so you can appre­ci­ate all the detail.