creative cuts

Amazing, right? This hand-cut map is the work of Karen O'Leary, an architectural designer who's creative goal is to replace the common with something more beautiful. The patience and determination that must have taken, not to mention a steady hand with the sharpest exacto knife. Wow! She describes it as "removing the unnecessary, leaving valuable information to navigate with color defining the main paths of the city".  I call it awesome!

First, she started with an ordinary map like this:

From there she began slicing away at each and every street in Manhattan, all the way up to 120th street and parts of Brooklyn and Queens.

She's also done a map of Paris and is currently working on London.

 

If you want to be wowed some more, she also does a series of prints using repeated vertical lines indicating the streets of Paris using the simplest form, pen and paper. Up close it doesn't look like much, but the farther away you are the more amazing and obviously extraordinary it becomes. Check out her etsy page for more designs.