Map of where we met as a personalised print

A map of where we met is a print of the streets around that first meeting. Not a decorative city, and not a photograph. The café. The platform. The park gate. A where we met map gift works when the person looking at it can point to a junction and tell the story in one breath.

You choose the place. We draw the streets. You add a title and, if you like, a date.

Start here: design a map of where we met. Search a postcode, an address or a landmark. Drop a pin. The preview updates as you go.

Begin with the place, not the frame

The decision that matters is which few hundred metres still feel like that evening.

Try this before you open the editor:

• Name the room or the doorway, then the street outside it
• Remember how you arrived: station, bus stop, car park, the walk in
• Decide whether the story is the building, or the neighbourhood that held it

A map of where we first met can be a tight crop of one block, or a wider view that shows how two people reached the same point. The tight crop suits a doorway you both still recognise. The wider view suits a night that spilled into surrounding streets.

If you met online first, map the first time you stood in the same place. That is the spot on the ground.

How to find the exact spot

Search the venue, the street or the postcode. If the result sits a little off, drag the map and tap to drop the pin where it actually happened. One place per map, with one marker.

Searches that tend to work:

• Café or pub name, then drag to the door
• A university building, not the whole campus
• Park name, then the bench or the gate
• A postcode if the venue has closed

You can map a place anywhere in the world. Physical prints go to UK addresses only. Digital downloads work anywhere, which is useful for someone abroad, or before you decide on a frame.

Lat & Long draws every map from OpenStreetMap, the free, community-made map of the world, maintained by volunteers. Every print carries the credit “© OpenStreetMap contributors”. These are line-art maps. Very new roads or small paths may occasionally be missing. If a tiny alley is not on the map, zoom out a little so the streets around it still tell the story.

How much map to show

Zoom changes the print more than colour does.

Too close, and later you may not tell which city it is. Too wide, and the pin floats in a grid of streets with no character. Give enough context that the place is recognisable, and enough detail that the meeting point still feels like a particular corner.

A practical test: point at the pin and say the story in one sentence. “That corner, after the gig.” If you need a whole borough to make sense of it, zoom out. If you only need the doorway, zoom in and let the neighbouring streets fill the sheet.

Buildings can be shown at the three closest zooms. Turn them on when the meeting was a particular building rather than a stretch of road.

Words, dates and how much to share

A title, the place name, and an optional date or a few words. That is all. The coordinates are added for you. You can show them in decimal degrees or in degrees, minutes and seconds, or hide them.

Short titles that stay specific:

• Where we met
• The night we met
• First hello
• This corner
• 12 March 2018

The place line can be the venue, the street, or only the city. Use the city if the print will hang where guests might read a full address. Use the venue if the two of you will know it at a glance.

Write dates the way you would in a letter. 12 March 2018. Spring 2016. The Saturday after a friend’s wedding.

Colour, layout and the marker

Eight colourways, each tuned for print: Ink, Navy & Brass, Blush, Forest, Terracotta, Monochrome Night, Sage and Coastal Blue. Four layouts: Classic (the neighbourhood edge to edge), Circle, Heart, or Minimal (nothing but the map and the coordinates).

Mark the spot with a heart, a pin or a star, or with no marker. If the street pattern already makes the place obvious, no marker looks calmer. If you want the eye to land immediately, use the pin.

Choose colour for the room: Navy & Brass for an atlas look, Ink for something closer to a book page.

What you approve on screen is what we print. The live preview and the print file come from the same engine, with the same data, fonts and colours.

Size: digital, A3 or framed

Settle the place and the words first, then pick a size.

Option	When it fits
Digital download	You want the file now, to print later, or for use anywhere in the world
A3 print	You already have a frame, or you want the unframed print
Framed 30 x 40 cm	A gift that can go on the wall without extra shopping
Framed 50 x 70 cm	The same design, larger, for a hallway or above a sofa

Digital is £14, an A3 print is £35 plus £3.95 UK delivery, framed 30 x 40 cm is £79 and framed 50 x 70 cm is £119, both framed sizes with free UK delivery.

If the story is three places (where you met, a first home, where you said I do), do not crowd them onto one sheet. The Our Story set is three matching framed maps, each with its own pin.

Giving a where we met map gift

This gift does not require the other person to have asked for a print. It requires them to care about the place.

It fits an anniversary (especially when the venue has gone and the streets have not), an engagement, a wedding present from someone who was there that first night, or Valentine’s if you would rather mark a real corner.

You design it. They do not have to open the editor. Search the place you both remember, or the place they have described to you. At checkout you can send the print straight to their address. Confirmations and tracking come to you, not to them. There is no gift message and no gift wrap: the map is the message.

For other occasions, start from the gift ideas page.

What to look for before you order

Look for these, in this order.

1. The streets are yours, drawn from OpenStreetMap and credited on the print, not a stylised city that could be anywhere.
2. The preview matches the print.
3. You set the crop, the words and the colour. Designed, not a fixed template with a postcode dropped in.
4. One marker, one place. Extra pins and routes belong to a different kind of map.
5. Printed and framed in the UK if you want a physical piece, with a digital option if you do not.

Those five are what Lat & Long is built around. Type the place. We draw the rest. You approve it.

A map of where we first met puts the actual junction on the wall, with your words underneath. That is the point.

When you are ready, drop the pin and order from the editor: a map of where we met.