Seattle's Weirdest Intersections Make a Fetching Design

One artist capitalized on the quirks of Seattle's street grid.

1 minute read

September 2, 2017, 9:00 AM PDT

By James Brasuell @CasualBrasuell


The poster "[depicts] 20 of the city’s complicated street crossings with minimalistic graphics. They range from Queen Anne’s seven-way stop to the busy meeting of Denny Way, Stewart Street and Yale Avenue near South Lake Union." Every street grid goes a little off-kilter, and Seattle is no exception.

Since Gorman posted them on his Etsy shop, Barely Maps, the posters have picked up a level of Internet fame not common among applications of transportation wonkery. Lee shares some of Gorman's insight about how the idea about the poster came to him, how the poster has sold lately, and the some statistics and reporting on the state of the city's streets.

The description of the map on the Barely Maps Etsy shop puts the joke behind the map pretty well: "When I first moved to Seattle, a friend told me that Seattle's layout is easy to understand. 'It's all a grid,' she said, 'until it's not.'"

Friday, September 1, 2017 in The Seattle Times

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I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching. Mary G., Urban Planner

I love the variety of courses, many practical, and all richly illustrated. They have inspired many ideas that I've applied in practice, and in my own teaching.

Mary G., Urban Planner

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