East End Independents – 2019 Edition

Following the original 2017 edition and a 2018 update, The East End Trades Guild have launched a new version of their specially created map of independent retail businesses in the East End of London, many of whom sell unique, locally made gifts ideal for Christmas. The attractively designed cartographical keepsake describes itself as “a map of small businesses for those that seek quality, distinctiveness & character”.

The simple but effective cartography uses pastel yellows, greens and blues, the latter two with a brush effect, to show built up areas, parks and the rivers respectively. This frees the wider colour palette and map space for illustrations of the various business products, and number circles to show the locations of their showrooms, factories or retail outlets. The design invites an exploration of certain streets with a great concentration of such businesses, such as Mare Street in Hackney and Shoreditch High Street, but the map extends from Angel in the west right out to the Olympic Park in the east.

This new edition was designed by Frederike Huber with the illustrations by Eleanor Crow, and produced in conjunction with The Gentle Author and supported by Hackney Council. It is of course also printed locally, at Aldgate Press.

The paper map is available at a number of the retailers featured on it, for example in the Welcome to the Forest Bar in Walthamstow.

Photos of map from Eleanor’s Twitter account.