The portolan chart is the working drawing of the age of the compass: a navigational map inked by hand onto a whole sheepskin, its surface webbed with rhumb lines that spoke out from compass roses in red, black, and green. Coastlines were drawn close and scalloped, ports lettered perpendicular to the shore, and the great cities marked with gilded vignettes.

This system rebuilds that workshop hand for the screen. Type is set in Roman capitals and period serifs; color is the heraldic ink palette of the Catalan school — sea-darkened tan vellum, blood-red for the quarter winds, iron-gall brown-black for the principal coast, and muted gold leaf for the roses. Geometry radiates rather than gridding.