A Gelato Map of Rome

I did this map for Food + City magazine, art directed and designed by Julie Savasky of Pentagram/Austin. Having spent time in Rome eating gelato it was a delicious project. Too bad they don't send artists on location.

Roma

When it's cold and gray here in Minneapolis it sometimes helps to spend a little time drawing a warmer, sunnier place. Somewhere I've been, in this case Rome, my favorite neighborhood of the old city between Piazza Navona and the Pantheon. I can almost smell the motorino fumes.

la Tempietto

When we were in Rome we stayed a stone's throw away from what many consider the most perfect building in Europe. It's tucked away at the top of the Janiculum Hill, and worth the climb. There is something felicitous about a quick drawing, imprecise and imperfect, of a precise and perfect building.

Roma

When I've spent time in a city it can be harder to illustrate a map of it. The things I remember, the places I liked, the cafés and piazzas I hung around in, insist on being included. Like the best stories, it's all about selection. And Rome is like a wonderful overstuffed museum, you step back to get a photo of a Baroque church and you stumble over a statue by Bernini. I walked Rome with a 1912 Baedeker in hand. A modern street map can tell you where you are but it doesn't capture the atmosphere of a place; it reduces the fabric of an ancient city to a soulless calculation.