Wilmington’s quirkiest intersections get the minimalist Barely Maps treatment

If you regularly check on Delaware’s Reddit sub, you’ve probably seen “Intersections of Wilmington.” That’s the minimalist collection of interesting street intersections including Market, 30th and Danby; MLK, Madison and Maryland; and the wildly complicated Union, Kentmere, Lovering, Park and Foster.

The piece is part of a series of minimalist maps by artist Peter Gorman, who created his first intersection design of Seattle in 2017. It’s now a series called Barely Maps.

“These maps were originally inspired by a one-year, 11,000-mile, solo bicycle trip around the country,” said Gorman, who currently lives and works on the Big Island of Hawaii.

He biked Wilmington early on in the trip.

“When I posted the first Intersections design, I started getting requests to adapt the design for other cities,” Gorman told Technical.ly. “Then, I realized that each time I share a new design, I continue to get requests for new cities, so I keep a running list which I’ve slowly been working off for the past few years.”

The Delaware city was an early request. Gorman remembers his time here fondly.

“I’d been asked to do Wilmington a while ago, so I was excited to finally design it and share it, especially since I biked through there and had firsthand experience in Wilmington,” he said. “[It’s] where I stumbled into a coffee shop during a rainstorm, and had one of the staff baristas offer to put me up for the night,” he said.

On the Barely Maps website, you can explore Intersection artwork and other minimalist designs of different cities. The project has led to a Kickstarter-funded book, with more books planned in the future.