From above, Seattle is a strip of land squeezed between two waters: Puget Sound on the west and Lake Washington on the east, with Lake Union and the canal cutting across the middle. The four posters below start from that shape and work inward, from the whole isthmus to a single block at Pike Place.
The maps below are real exports from the Carto-Art editor. Each one keeps its complete composition, framing, palette, typography and title, behind a customization link that loads it into the editor. Move the frame, change the title, or swap the colours, then download the result. The map data comes from OpenStreetMap, and the exports keep that attribution in the image.
Seattle between the Sound and the lake
For the wall that needs to say Seattle at a glance, with nothing to read.
The frame runs from the east shore of Bainbridge Island on the left to the Bellevue shore of Lake Washington on the right. Elliott Bay bites into the city at the centre, with the piers drawn as a fine comb along the downtown waterfront. Above it the canal threads from the Sound into Lake Union, and on to Union Bay and the lake. Lake Washington fills the right third of the poster top to bottom, with Mercer Island sitting in it at the lower right. West Seattle and Alki Point are at the lower left, and the Duwamish Waterway winds south from the harbour toward the bottom edge.
Streets and labels are off on purpose. The Coastal palette gives deep teal water on warm cream land, with parks as pale tints. The title sits over open water in the southern Sound. Playfair Display serif, 2:3 portrait.
Lake Washington and the Eastside
For the reader who lives across the lake and wants their own grid on the plate.
This landscape plate moves the centre east so the lake is the subject. The downtown Seattle grid and Elliott Bay sit on the left, with a single Seattle label at the waterfront. Lake Washington runs through the middle with Mercer Island inside it, and the two bridges that cross the lake are drawn as dark lines: SR 520 near the top and I-90 at the bottom. These are the only two road crossings of the lake, and both are floating bridges. The Eastside street network fills the right half, with its small lakes, and the shore of Lake Sammamish shows at the far right edge. Green Lake is at the top left, the canal and Lake Union below it.
Rail lines and boundaries are drawn; park fills are off. The only place name on the plate is Seattle. The Eastside towns are there as street pattern, not as labels. Warm Gray palette, Montserrat title at the bottom left so the band stays over the Sound and off the Eastside shore, 3:2 landscape.
Downtown at night
For an office, a den, or anyone who knows the city by its freeways.
The one dark poster in the set. Elliott Bay is navy water down the left edge with the piers as short fingers into it. The downtown grid is drawn as pale lines, tilted to follow the shoreline, and the grid turns to true north above Denny Way. Interstate 5 runs top to bottom right of centre as a bright gold ribbon, and State Route 99 traces the waterfront as a second one. The open blocks of Seattle Center are at the upper left and the tip of Lake Union is at the top. A single Seattle label sits in the grid near the centre.
Gold Standard palette, Bebas Neue title, square format. No street names, so the pattern reads from across a room.
Pike Place
For a gift about a meeting place, with a heart on the spot.
The heart marker sits on Pike Place between Western Avenue and 1st Avenue. Alaskan Way and Elliott Avenue follow the water along the left edge, with the piers reaching into the bay. Denny Way crosses the top of the frame with the grounds of Seattle Center at the upper left, and the diagonal downtown grid fills the rest: Pine, Pike, Union, University, Seneca and Spring Streets, the numbered avenues, and Interstate 5 along the right. Yesler Way and the edge of Pioneer Square sit above the title.
Street names are on and legible at this scale. Blush palette, Cormorant Garamond title with the centre coordinates under the subtitle, 4:5 portrait. Change the title to a name and a date and move the heart to any address.
Make the map yours
Every map in this post can be changed. Work in this order:
- Set the framing. Keep both waters in frame on the overview; the shape stops reading as Seattle once the Sound or the lake is cropped out. For a neighbourhood, start from the Pike Place poster, move the heart to your address, and keep a stretch of shoreline in the frame so the print stays easy to place.
- Choose your colours. Seattle is mostly water, so pick a palette whose water you like: Coastal and Warm Gray give teal and slate blue on cream, Gold Standard gives navy on black. Check the water colour before anything else.
- Add a title. Try a neighbourhood and a year, such as "Ballard, 2019"; a meeting place, such as "Where we met, Pike Place"; or a shore, such as "Home on the Eastside".
- Inspect the result. Look at small text, thin roads and the edges before exporting.
Downloading and printing your map
Carto-Art exports your map as a digital PNG image. You can print the file at home or send it to a print provider. A download does not include a physical poster or frame.
Choose your intended paper size before exporting and match the image's aspect ratio to the print: fitting a portrait image into a wider frame means cropping or borders. The Sound-and-lake overview and the Pike Place poster suit portrait frames, the Eastside plate suits a landscape frame, and the downtown night map is square.
The editor's print presets export at 300 pixels per inch, from a 12 inch long edge up to 36 inches. A 12 × 18 inch print, for example, needs a 3,600 × 5,400 pixel image. Check the dimensions of your downloaded file against your printer's requirements.
At print sizes, fine street labels are the first thing to become hard to read. If the small text matters, choose a tighter crop with fewer labels before exporting.
Free exports are available within the current plan limits and include a small cartoart.net watermark; Carto Plus removes the watermark and the export limits. Your account page shows what your plan includes.
Questions about your Seattle map
Which parts of Seattle are inside the overview?
The overview runs from Bainbridge Island's east shore to the Bellevue shore, and from north of the canal down past the Duwamish Waterway. That takes in Ballard, Magnolia, Queen Anne, Fremont and Wallingford around Lake Union, Capitol Hill and the Central District between the lake and downtown, West Seattle and Alki, and Mercer Island in the lake. Northgate and the far north end are above the frame, and the airport is below it.
Can I centre the map on Bellevue or Kirkland instead?
Yes. Open the Eastside plate and drag the map until your shore is in the middle; the lake and the bridges keep the view recognisable. At the zoom used here the plate names only Seattle, so if you want your town's name on the poster, zoom in on that shore and check which labels appear before you export.
Will the street names survive at poster size?
Only the Pike Place poster has street names. They are set for a 4:5 print at 12 by 15 inches or larger; at that scale the avenue names along the diagonal grid stay readable. The other three posters leave street names off on purpose so the shapes carry the design from a distance.
Which format suits a hallway?
Portrait. The Sound-and-lake overview is the natural choice because Seattle's shape is taller than it is wide, and the title sits over open water at the bottom. The Eastside plate is the one to choose for a wide wall above a sofa or desk.
Open the Seattle between the Sound and the lake poster in the editor and make it yours, or start from a blank map of anywhere at cartoart.net/editor.
