Illustrated City Map — Kilkenny, Ireland

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Illustrated tourist map of Kilkenny,
a beautiful historic city in a wonderous region of Ireland.

The goal was to produce a map which displays all the highlights of Kilkenny and helps visitors who seek to find them. Medieval Mile is a discovery trail running through the centre of Kilkenny, linking the city's 13th-century St Canice's Cathedral and the Anglo-Norman castle. It was important for the Client to show the exact locations of places of interest around the Medieval Mile. To fit everything into the map, some distortion of the area was needed. The innermost part of the city was enlarged, while the outer parts were pulled closer to the centre, but all was done in a way to retain the relative angles of the streets, so visitors wouldn't get lost or disoriented. While the highlights are accurate depictions of the real locations, the rest of the buildings (coloured in grey) were designed after the real neighbourhoods too, in this way, the map is not only accurate but also feels authentic.

Can you spot the ghost in the city?

client ⸭ Kilkenny COUNTY Council

art direction & brochure layout ⸭ Designworks Dublin

map design ⸭ Gergő Gilicze

font family ⸭ Alegreya & Alegreya Sans by Huerta Tipográfica

These are the 23 highlights of the map, mostly historic sites but there are also public arts and pubs. The main attraction is Kilkenny Castle with the surrounding park, but many more things worth a visit as Kilkenny is such a nice town to walk around. To a history buff and a map lover such as myself, drawing all these old buildings and assembling them on a map was not just an amazing task, but also a truly fun time.