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Maps & Documents


Digital and actual document creation, recreation and restoration for various clients.


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This letter was recreated from the text of the original letter published in a 1918 newspaper, and the original document was lost to time. It was the last letter from a WWI Connecticut soldier, Philip Edwards, to his parents.
A WWI Letter		This is a restoration of the October 31, 1765 Pennsylvania Journal, the famous "last issue" which editorialized about the dire financial straits in which the newspaper would be placed because of the Stamp Act. The Stamp Act (to start the following day) required newspapers to pay a tax to the Crown and attach a stamp on every issue....a very large burden. Actual 250 year-old paper was scanned in to create the paper texture, and then authentic period fonts were used to clearly recreate the text. The rest of the design content was created digitally to match the original newspaper.
1765 Pennsylvania Journal		This is a fictionalized but historically accurate newspaper advertisement, common in the 18th century. Created to tell the story of Benjamin Edwards' sailing as a cooper on the Bristol, the fonts and images are correct for the period. Notice the "print-through" of the type from the reverse side, typical for newspapers of that period.
18th Century Newspaper Ad		This document never really existed. It's an authentic recreation of a typical bill-of-lading of the 18th century. This would have been used by a ship entering Boston Harbor and required by the 1765 Stamp Act to carry the embossed paper tax stamp. (See upper left corner and detail inset.) From researching original examples of the stamp, I created the digital version as well as the metal staple used to fasten the stamps to the document. Authentic fonts and handwriting examples of the 18th century were used in the body of the document. The physical paper itself was scanned from a 250 year-old original.
18th Century Tax Stamp
This authentic recreation of a 1936 Postal Telegraph telegram was created using a documented account of the actual content as well as researched examples of Postal Telegraphs of that period. Created for the ongoing project about the history of the Boston Museum of Natural History.
1936 Postal Telegraph		This assortment of documents and objects was created from scratch for the Berkley Books' "Novels of the Abbadon Inn" series. This double-page spread shows a range of documents from different centuries, each one telling an intriguing bit of history about this fictional haunted inn. All graphics, typefaces and designs are authentic for the periods.
Abbadon Inn History