The map
How many milestones should you choose?
In short
Every map carries five to eight milestones, eight is the maximum. That is the range the layout is built for, and it is what keeps every label readable at the size people actually print. So the question is not how many will fit, but which eight changed something.
The range, and why eight is the ceiling
Five is enough to make a road. Eight fills a poster, and eight is also the ceiling: it is what the format can carry while every label stays readable at 30 × 45 cm, which is the size most people print.
At eight stops, a map printed at 30 × 45 cm has labels you can read from across a room. Past that the type shrinks until the map becomes something you walk up to and read, which is a document rather than a picture.
The price is the same whether you send five or eight, so there is no reason to under-fill it. There is also no version that holds more.
Cutting a long relationship down
If you have been together fifteen years, eight stops sounds impossible. It is not. It is just a different exercise. Three questions that do the cutting for you:
1. Did it change where we lived, who we were, or who was in the house? Moving in, buying a home, moving country, a child, a dog, a business. These almost always earn a stop.
2. Would we tell a stranger about it? The proposal, the elopement, the trip you still talk about. If it comes up when people ask how you met, it is a stop.
3. Is it the only one of its kind? Five holidays is not five stops. Group them: “Traveling the world: 2021 to 2022, France, Italy and Mexico” is one stop that covers a year.
That last one is the trick most people miss. Grouping buys you room without losing anything.
What to keep and what to group
| Keep as its own stop | Group into one |
|---|---|
| Where you met | Several holidays in a period |
| First date | Multiple city trips |
| Moving in together | A run of flats before the real one |
| Engagement | Every anniversary |
| The wedding | Individual birthdays |
| A home you bought or built | Every visit to the same place |
| Each child or pet, by name | Weekends away |
| Emigrating, or a career change | Every job |
The stop worth saving space for
The last one. Every map ends with a “to be continued” arrow, and the final stop before it is usually the anniversary you are marking, or something that has not happened yet.
Maps have included a wedding date still months away and a baby due the following year. Putting a future stop on the road changes what the map is: not a summary of what happened, but a story still running.
If you genuinely cannot choose
Use the grouping trick above first, because it usually solves the problem on its own. “Traveling the world, 2021 to 2022, France, Italy & Mexico” is one stop carrying a year, and most people find two or three groups hiding in their list.
Decide before you order rather than after the draft. The map is a timeline and the composition is drawn around the sequence, so stops cannot be added or dropped once the draft exists: the ones you send are the ones you get. If you are still over eight after grouping, pick the ones that changed something and put the rest into the personal note instead. A handwritten-style note can be lettered into the artwork at no extra cost, and a line like “and every summer in Cornwall since” holds a lot in very little space.
What does not work is treating the map as a list. Fifteen stops is a timeline, and a timeline is not a map.
The counter-intuitive part
The best maps are usually not the fullest ones. One map covers a single year in eight stops (a dating app, a pub, a holiday, a flat, a house, a wedding, a baby on the way) and it is one of the strongest, because nothing on it is filler.
Another covers six stops and gives the space back to a handwritten note. That map has fewer milestones than the maximum and more on it.
Milestone ideas has sixty-odd options taken from real maps if you are still deciding what qualifies, and our count of 24 delivered maps shows which stops other couples actually chose.
Questions
What is a custom love map?
A custom love map is a personalised illustration that charts a couple’s relationship as a map. A road winds through the places that mattered: where you met, your first date, the proposal, the wedding, the homes and the pets. Each one is labelled with its real place name and date. It is delivered as a print-ready file, so you choose the size and print it wherever you like.
What size is the file?
The file is a 300 DPI PDF in a 2:3 aspect ratio, so it scales cleanly to 20×30, 30×45, 40×60, 50×75 and 60×90 cm (8×12, 12×18, 16×24, 20×30 and 24×36 in). A4–A1 also work, but A-series paper is a 1:√2 ratio, so a 2:3 poster prints with thin white borders on the left and right.
Do I get a printed poster in the post?
No. This is a digital product. You receive files, not a parcel, which is why there is no shipping cost, no customs delay, and nothing that can arrive late or damaged.
How many milestones can I include?
Between five and eight. That is the range the layout is built for, and it is what reads cleanly at poster size, eight labelled stops is already a dense poster. If you have more moments than that, the map is better for choosing the eight that changed something than for fitting everything in.
Can you include our actual pub, campus or wedding venue?
Yes, name it and describe anything distinctive about it, and it becomes its own illustration instead of a generic building. Past maps have included The Alma pub in Crystal Palace, Adriatico’s Pizza in Columbus, the Taylor Tower and Bradley Hall halls of residence at Ohio State, a family camper-van business, and the maternity hospital in Cape Town where a customer’s children were born.
Can you include our pets and children?
Yes, by name, and by breed. Dogs, cats, babies and even a grandchildren family tree have all been part of previous maps.
Can you add a personal message?
Yes. A handwritten-style note can be lettered into the map, and short lines or inside jokes can be scattered along the road as little pinned notes. It is one of the most loved parts of the map and costs nothing extra, just send the words you want on it.