Frequently Asked Questions
What people ask before ordering, answered here rather than spread across five pages. If yours is not below, write and we will answer it and add it.
Before you order
What am I actually getting?
A map of one state, province or territory, drawn as its counties, census divisions or council areas in flat blocks of colour with white seams between them. No roads, no terrain, nothing crowding the shapes but their names. It reads as a pattern from across a room and as your own piece of it from up close.
Every boundary is real. What is stylised is the palette and the flat fill, not the geography underneath it.
Does it name the regions?
Yes. Every region the map draws is named on the print, in type sized to be read from where you would stand. The place name sits above the map.
Most map pages also list every name, so you can check yours before buying. A few give the count and not the list, and the page says so where that is the case.
My state does not have counties.
Then the map does not claim it does. Louisiana is drawn and described in parishes, Alaska in boroughs and census areas, and Connecticut in the planning regions that replaced its counties. Canada is drawn in census divisions and Australia in local government areas. The heading on each page uses the word that place uses.
Why is there white space around the map?
Because frames are made in standard shapes and places are not. A wide map on a standard sheet leaves paper above and below it, and a tall one leaves paper at the sides.
That margin is part of the design rather than a printing fault. Each size is chosen from the frame shape closest to that map, so the gap is as small as the shape allows.
What is the difference between the finishes?
Five, and they change the object rather than the artwork:
- Classic Frame: the print behind a glaze, in a solid wood moulding.
- Box Frame: the same print set deeper, so it sits away from the glaze.
- Framed Canvas: printed on canvas and framed, with no glaze in front of it.
- Stretched Canvas: canvas over a wooden stretcher, no frame at all.
- Cork Pin Board: a pinnable cork surface in a frame, for marking places you have been.
Will the colours look like they do on screen?
Close, and not identical. A screen makes colour with light and paper reflects it, so a palette reads slightly differently in a room than it did in a browser. Pale colourways are the ones that shift most.
That difference is not treated as a fault, and the returns page says so plainly rather than leaving you to find out once it is on the wall.
Delivery
How long will it take?
Allow 3 to 13 business days from ordering to arrival. That covers both halves: getting the map made and boxed, then the carrier getting it to you.
The second half is the part nobody controls, which is why the range is wide rather than optimistic.
What does shipping cost?
$19.99 per item, at every size and to every country we send to. Two maps in one order pay it twice, and there is no other charge.
Where do you ship?
Australia, Canada and the United States, and nowhere else yet. If you want one sent somewhere else, write before ordering and we will tell you honestly whether we can.
The cork pin board is the one exception: it goes to United States addresses only. Every other finish goes to all three.
Can I order one for a particular date?
Order it early. The 3 to 13 business day range is what we expect rather than a date we can hold on your behalf, and there is no faster option to pay for.
If the date is tight, we would rather say that here than take the order and hope.
How is it packed?
Flat, in rigid board, not rolled in a tube. A rolled print arrives with a curl that has to be flattened before it will sit properly, and on a large sheet that can take days under a stack of books.
If something goes wrong
It arrived damaged.
Email us within thirty days with your order number and a photograph, and we will replace it. Nothing has to be posted back first and you will not be charged for the replacement or its postage.
The photograph is not a hurdle. It is how we work out what went wrong so it does not happen to the next one.
It is the wrong map, size or palette.
Same answer, same thirty days. That is our error and we fix it at our cost.
I changed my mind.
Tell us quickly. If we can still stop it, we cancel and refund in full. Once it is under way we cannot take it back, and the returns page sets out where that line falls. The 30 day window above is for faults, which are handled differently.
A boundary does not match another map I have.
Boundaries get redrawn, and different sources redraw them at different times. These are decorative prints rather than survey documents, so where they disagree with an official map, the official map is the one to trust.
Looking after it
Will it fade?
Not quickly, and direct sunlight is still the thing to avoid. A wall that gets full sun for part of every day will dull any print in the end, and the pale palettes show it first.
How do I clean it?
A dry cloth on the glaze, and nothing on the print itself. Do not spray a cleaner at a framed piece: the liquid runs down behind the glaze and reaches the paper, which is not recoverable.
Does it arrive ready to hang?
The framed and canvas finishes do. The cork pin board hangs the same way and takes pins straight into the surface.
Getting hold of us
How do I reach a person?
Email hello@patchworkatlas.com. Put your order number in the subject line if you have one, because it is the difference between an answer today and an answer after two more messages.
Do you have a map that is not listed?
Ask. The range is the fifty US states, the Canadian provinces and territories and the Australian states today, and it grows outward from there, so a country or a region that is not up yet may well be next.
Still stuck? Email hello@patchworkatlas.com and a person will answer.