The Brief: 

Create an intricate and geographically accurate map of London, showing where all the Zizzi restaurants are located.

When the call for this job came along, I was so excited. I love a good map, so a brief to create a London map for Zizzi was pretty exciting!I started out by sourcing a selection of London maps, and seeing how they were laid out. 

I took inspiration from old style maps, and I was very keen to include drawings of London landmarks and places of interest.I started out with my favourite medium: tracing paper and rapidograph pens. I laid out the streets using a similar London map of the City of London, and I began putting in the drawings of interesting locations.

The longest element of this project was the initial blocking out of the city. This took a while, and as I was illustrating a certain building, I'd realised that a street was missing, or I'd forgotten to put in a borough.Eventually though, the skeleton of the illustration of London was complete. That's when I scanned it in, and took it to my first meeting with Zizzi about the progress of the map. 

We decided to add colour, and add more detail and buildings.The length of the job was around a month and a half. It was a lovely illustration job to do, and I'm thrilled with the results.If you can't get your hands on a printed map at Zizzi (they flew off the shelves!) 

You can find it in the Association of Illustrators Images 35 book which is on sale at Somerset House shop this October.