On the Map
father to claim that her daughter worked directly for Winston Churchill. When the war was over, with paper restrictions still in place and London full of overseas troops, Pearsall placed an order for A-Zs to be printed in Holland. She was injured in a plane crash on her return from the printers to London, but her recovery was cheered by the unprecedented demand; the run of 250,000 copies sold within months. The maps were updated every five years, regional versions appeared throughout the UK, colour was introduced in the 1980s (it was really the colour that made the maps iconic), and at its peak in the 1990s Pearsall’s company was selling about a half a million maps a year. Both the A-Z logo and the distinctive look of the maps themselves achieved – by longevity and utility – the sort of brand recognition that results, inevitably, in teeshirts, mugs and an unspoken feeling of London pride. In a poll for London’s Design Museum and BBC’s Culture Show, the A-Z took its place on a list beside the Mini, Concorde and the Underground map. And of course in the biography of its founder that accompanied this accolade on the Design Museum website, Phyllis Pearsall is walking 23,000 streets for eighteen hours a day.
o To get to the offices of Geographers’ A-Z Map Company Ltd in Borough Green, Kent, one takes a train from London’s Victoria Station and walks for about a minute. One doesn’t need a map at all. The low building is neither a remarkable nor an attractive one, but the walls inside are brightened by some pretty watercolours of rural landscapes. They were painted by Phyllis Pearsall, and alongside the English idylls are examples of her other work – sketches of people hard at work on maps. 286