Universal Publishers (Australia)

Universal Publishers
Industry	Map-making
Headquarters	Sydney, Australia
Key people	Astrid Browne Managing Director
Products	UBD-Gregory's Street Directories and maps
Website	http://www.universalpublishers.com.au/

Universal Publishers produce the ubiquitous UBD-Gregory's street directories in Australia. The names of these publications have come to be used as a generic term for street directories in many Australian cities.

Company profile

Universal publishes street directories, guides, maps and road atlases and is Australia's largest mapping and travel related products publisher. The company distributes travel, language and cartographic ranges for Berlitz, Insight Guides, Michelin and Marco Polo

Products

Australian capital city street directories
State street directories for each state and territory
'CityLink' directories containing Brisbane, Melbourne or Sydney street directories and surrounding regional areas
'Compact' street directories for capital cities and 'mini' street directories for eastern states capital cities
Regional street directories for each state containing town maps and a road atlas. The Northern Territory town maps and road atlas are integrated into the South Australia directory
A variety of fold-out maps covering capital cities, regional areas and entire states
DVD versions of the capital/regional city street directories and regional Cities and Towns directories
Road atlases covering the whole of Australia

The above products were branded UBD prior to the 2012 editions when production of standalone Gregory's street directories ceased in favour of cobranded UBD-Gregory's directories retaining the UBD format,^[1] with the exception of the Darwin directory which is still published in Gregory's format.^[2] The last standalone Gregory's directory was the commemorative 75th Edition Sydney street directory, published in 2011.^[3]

Comprehensive Directories

While primarily street directories, UBD and Gregory's also contain details on public transport (train and light rail, tickets and prices), bicycle paths, suburb and postcode details, public parks and reserves, landmarks (such as commercial buildings, telephone boxes, pubs and restaurants), attractions, and also boat mooring details in recognised docks. They also contain maps of university campuses and crematoria. Prior to the UBD-Gregory's merger the UBD Compact street directories also contained a 'Cityside guide' with tourist information.

Cartography

The rendering of roads in most city and town maps uses the traditional drawing of two lines with the road name printed in-between, (known as 'double casing'). In the UBD Melbourne directory ^[4] maps show a single line with the name above or below the road to make it more appealing to people familiar with the Melway street directory. This mapping style is also used for road atlas maps and main road maps.

References