The Art of Map Design – With 8 Famous Artists

As the high streets of the world’s great cities come to resemble each other more and more, there’s one refuge where you can be sure to find unique objects and attractions: the galleries.

Firmly lodged in ageing museums, crammed into pop-up storefronts, or even displayed on the walls of the city streets in the form of graffiti (legal or otherwise), a city’s art collection offers an alternative look at the culture of the place.

Local artists serve up pieces that may reflect critically on the city itself, or simply capture the vibe of the city whilst visually representing something else. Visiting artists provide fresh blood, seeing a place with new eyes. Inspiration is never far off in Tokyo, London, or Paris.

And so the people at Credit Card Compare have put together a guide to some of the most inspiring cultural hotspots of cities that have inspired our greatest artists – and they’ve illustrated these maps in the style of the artists themselves. What a great idea!

Tokyo

The aesthetic of legendary polka-dot obsessed painter and performance artist Yayoi Kusama is borrowed here for a new map of Tokyo art and culture. Ota Fine Arts Gallery takes pride of place in the south of the city. Due to emerging from a period of renovation, Ota is a must-visit for contemporary art aficionados, who will enjoy the chance to see the most ground-breaking of today’s Japanese artists against a context of their international peers.

To the west, you’ll grab a breath of fresh air as you take in the view of one of Japan’s most celebrated national art forms at the Shinjuku Gyoen National Garden. Japanese gardens are noted for their craft and grace, and can be every bit of satisfying to the hungry art tourist as a gallery or performance.

And if you’re drawn to Kusama’s dotty map (and who wouldn’t be?) you’ll want to follow it north to the Yayoi Kusama Museum in Shinjuku-ku. Supporting a permanent collection that represents the stunning breadth and depth of the artist’s seven-decade career are two new exhibitions each year that promise to put her work into a contemporary context.

London

UK graffiti artist Banksy’s mock-map of London looks positively sober next to the brightly-coloured anarchy of Kusama’s Tokyo. As with Banksy’s monochromatic, stencilled masterpieces, the devil’s in the details.

London street life is like nowhere else on Earth, and the social and economic culture of the down-to-earth Londoners and adopted-Londoners who’ll welcome you will be in stark contrast to the famous royal and imperial landmarks that represent the kind of privilege Banksy’s work attempts to deflate.

A long walk from the art establishment of the Tate Modern on the South Bank of the Thames to the aristocratic establishment of Buckingham Palace will take you past a number of the street artist’s outdoor works. These include a number of his famous rats, such as the ‘You Lose’ rat in Steelyard Passage and the ‘Always Fail’ rat on Farringdon Road. The ‘Falling Shopper’ on Bruton Street is a particularly well-preserved piece since it’s painted seven meters from the ground, where rival graffiti artists can’t reach it! The earthbound consumer icon may have you thinking twice about filling your shopping basket with souvenirs, however.

Florence

If your tastes are more classical, you’ll want to print and tea-stain the mock Leonardo Da Vinci map of Florence, Italy. As with Kusama’s home city, Florence sports a museum dedicated to its celebrated inhabitant. The 16^th century Uffizi Gallery, Palazzo Vecchio, and Palazzo Medici Riccardi are other art venues that are artworks in themselves, being wonderful examples of Renaissance architecture.

Amsterdam

Vincent van Gogh wandered Amsterdam in search of inspiration, and now you can follow his footsteps (spiritually, at least). Starting at the Van Gogh Museum itself, you’ll take a clockwise tour from the south-west corner of the city to the hipster-tinted historic quarter of Jordaan, where people, canals, and marketplaces offer a unique flavour. Mid-way through your circle you’ll reach Vincent’s former lodgings at his Uncle Jan’s house in the north-east, before taking in flower markets, museums, and galleries on your way back to the start.

Los Angeles

Yorkshireman David Hockney made an adopted home of Los Angeles, and you too will find it offers attractions like no other place – once you look beneath the surface. Head to the Hollywood Hills to find his house and spot the famous sign, and with those tourist must-sees out of the way you can reflect on the artworks themselves at the L.A. Louver on North Venice Boulevard. Rodeo Drive and Nichols Canyon are almost artworks in themselves, and you’ll recognize the landscapes from countless hit movies.

New York

If it’s New York it has to be Andy Warhol, the godfather of Pop Art. It’s a chic screen-printed map, then, to accompany your travels. You can take in a bit of contemporary art history by visiting the former Studio 54 on West 54^th Street – presently a theatre, it used to be a nightclub frequented by the glamorous and the tortured of the New York art scene. For the actual artworks, you’ll want to make your way east to the Guggenheim and MOMA on 53^rd.

Melbourne

Australia’s Sir Sidney Nolan was known for his Quixotic visions of the bush. In Expedia’s map, his muse Ned Kelly tours from Luna Park to the Heide Museum of Modern Art in search of enrichment!

Johannesburg

William Kentridge’s eye-grabbing charcoal sketches make for a refined map filled with South Africa’s artistic and socio-political history. The Cradle of Humankind is a good place to start – indeed, it honours the lands where we all started, many millennia ago…

Isn't it time you gave Google Maps a day off?

This article was first published here.