Native Maps - Knoxville, TN
“Neighborhoods mean community, and community means a lot to us as a family and as a business.”
Becca and David Harman make “hand-printed, research-driven (neighborhood) maps” in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Native Maps was founded in the Harmans' attic studio in 2014 with the goal of producing attractive and accurate neighborhood maps of well-known American cities, providing a visual representation of the invisible delineations of our local neighborhoods.
Native Maps sources their paper from family-operated French Paper Co. in Niles, Michigan. Every map is thoroughly researched and approved by locals to verify accuracy and authenticity.
Native Maps has a very simple and earnest brand aesthetic, with many pictures and videos of their family, their young daughter often playing and observing David and Becca while they print. The email subscription cue on their site promises only one or two emails each month with simply "the good stuff".
David, who has a Masters of Fine Arts in Painting, has a TedxUTKnoxville talk about Hipster Entrepreneurs and the Maker Movement, and he's very attuned to the maker movement that we observe and analyze in the Overbeck blog. Becca, a Soil Science graduate student, also has a TEDx talk on Stopping Land Degredation in northern Haiti. They're real people who have real interests and other specializations, which we find remarkably refreshing in a world where a lot of makers become totally consumed in, say, their candles alone.
The Native Maps line of offerings is expanding, with the duo creating a new city rendering once every few months. They also offer American-made reclaimed wood poster hangers and frames to show of the elegant prints.
And perhaps that's why we like Native Maps so much at Overbeck. Unassuming people making tasteful home decor in a crowded market of often stuffy alternatives.
Visit their site at www.nativemaps.us