A small shop in Galway with a strict rule.

The idea

It looks like information. Usually it is not.

The shop began as Chromony and has just been renamed to InkAndAltitude, because the name should say what the work is. Ink is the printing. Altitude is the data - depth, elevation, gradient, the vertical dimension that most wall art flattens away.

The idea came from a straightforward irritation. Search for a print of a lake you know and you will find hundreds of them, almost none of which have any relationship to the actual lake. The shape is approximate. The depths are decorative. The "contours" are a texture somebody bought in a pack. It looks like information and it is not.

So the rule here is that the data comes first and the design serves it. A lake outline is the surveyed shoreline. A depth band is a real contour interval. A summit list is complete, with the row count checked, because a checklist that quietly drops a peak is broken. A circuit is the ring that OpenStreetMap surveyors actually mapped, or it is not printed at all.

That rule costs something, and it is worth being honest about the bill. Six of the seven lines are still in production, three race circuits are refused, and an entire state's lakes are on hold. All of that could be fixed this afternoon by drawing something that looks about right. It will not be.