Adam Dant’s Map Of East End Trades

Celebrating Small Business Saturday tomorrow, the East End Trades Guild commissioned Adam Dant to draw this map showing the location of their members – the small shops, family businesses and independent traders. Pick up your free copy from any of the places listed on the map.

Adam Dant will be showing his maps and talking about them at 7pm next Tuesday 4th December as part of Type Tuesday at St Bride Foundation, EC4Y 8EQ. Click here for tickets

Click on the map to enlarge

In the East End, it is the family businesses and independent traders who have created the identity of the place and carry the life of our streets.

Spitalfields owes its origin to the market traders and skilled artisans trading outside the walls of the City of London in the medieval era. As the East End expanded in the nineteenth century, every street was built with a corner shop and a pub at either end which served as meeting spaces, building the strong communities still celebrated today.

Driven by necessity, East Enders have always devoted themselves to invent ingenious and creative ways of making a living, defining East London as the centre of innovation and enterprise in the capital for more than three centuries – from the jacquard weavers of the eighteenth century to the code writers of our own time.

It is this enduring culture of resourcefulness which makes the East End such a vital place and which is championed today by The East End Trades Guild, cherishing our small shops and independent businesses.

The founding members of the East End Trades Guild photographed by Martin Usborne

CLICK TO ORDER A SIGNED COPY OF MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND BY ADAM DANT

Adam Dant’s MAPS OF LONDON & BEYOND is a mighty monograph collecting together all your favourite works by Spitalfields Life‘s cartographer extraordinaire in a beautiful big hardback book.

Including a map of London riots, the locations of early coffee houses and a colourful depiction of slang through the centuries, Adam Dant’s vision of city life and our prevailing obsessions with money, power and the pursuit of pleasure may genuinely be described as ‘Hogarthian.’

Unparalleled in his draughtsmanship and inventiveness, Adam Dant explores the byways of English cultural history in his ingenious drawings, annotated with erudite commentary and offering hours of fascination for the curious.

The book includes an extensive interview with Adam Dant by The Gentle Author.

Adam Dant’s  limited edition prints are available to purchase through TAG Fine Arts