London Unfurled

Picador / Pan Macmillan

In 2009, Matteo Pericoli, author of the bestselling Manhattan Unfurled, embarked on a twenty-mile journey along the River Thames. Two years later, he completed one of the most astonishing documents of a city ever created.

London Unfurled brings his remarkable 37-foot drawings of the Thames’ north and south banks to life on iPad, covering every detail of the river from Hammersmith Bridge to the Millennium Dome. A dozen boroughs, nineteen bridges, and hundreds of iconic buildings — including the Houses of Parliament, Tate Modern, Battersea Power Station, and the London Eye — are all rendered with breathtaking, essay-like precision.

In addition, Matteo also shares the story behind the work through exclusive audio voiceover highlights, offering a rare and intimate insight into its creation.

Working from the client’s initial brief, I took complete ownership of the project from the ground up, responsible for all creative and user-facing decisions, from concept through to delivery.

With only broad requirements to work from, I developed all proposed layouts, structural frameworks, and content organisation from scratch, making considered decisions about information hierarchy to ensure the experience felt intuitive. Alongside this, I handled all UI design, visual direction, and graphic production — every decision made in service of clarity, usability, and engagement.

To validate ideas before development began, I built a series of interactive prototypes at key stages, allowing me to identify friction points early and giving the client a tangible way to understand and sign off on how the product would behave. Once designs were finalised, I managed the developer handover personally, ensuring all build assets were comprehensive and accurately reflected the design intent.