Place Maker: Top Wooden Map Creator MapCuts

While his brother, Kyle, was living in Florida, Matt Celek decided to create a reminder of their family home in Cuyahoga Falls. He had a laser cutter, so he made Kyle a wooden map of their hometown. He enjoyed every bit of it — designing it, cutting it, staining it — and Kyle loved it too. Celek posted the map when he made it in 2020 and got a lot of interest, so he started selling more maps in 2021 — and MapCuts was formed. What began in his backyard workshop with just Celek has now scaled up to an about 22-employee operation on its own Stow property, fulfilling a staggering 22,000-plus orders to date. The maps can be customized, creating meaning for recipients.

“I get some videos where some people — they’ll be crying,” says Celek.

For the first two years, Celek was working 14-hour-plus days from his garage, making wooden maps on one laser cutter. He expanded into a barn and then a front garage. Celek bought the Stow property for business use in 2023, which has a house featuring Little Oaks Market selling MapCuts and more artisanal wares, as well as a 2,400-square-foot production warehouse containing eight laser cutters.

Celek, Kyle and five others design maps using mapx.co, a design program recently launched by Celek that’s available for use.

“I downloaded all the GIS information and uploaded it to the cloud, so it’s all remote data,” says Celek, who has long been interested in Computer-Aided Design, has a University of Akron business degree and is self-taught. “It goes faster.”

Always looking to improve, Celek also made a client proofing system. “I created some systems when we design it or somebody places an order, they’ll get an email and text,” he says. “We can drop the proof in the program that I have sent off automatically, they can click on it and proof it right online versus having to text and message us.”

The design is then loaded into LightBurn Software to program the laser cutter. It’s cut onto maple plywood from Keim Co. in Amish Country. It gets sanded, stained with custom stains, glued together, sprayed with a clear coat, framed with a poplar frame from Keim and shipped to customers throughout North America.

MapCuts sells a wide range of options, including streetscape city maps, golf course or hole-in-one maps, wedding maps, housewarming maps and textured topographical maps of places like Cuyahoga Valley National Park. Sticky icon packs mark special locales.

“We’ll mark where their house is. Some people put where their favorite fishing spot is. We’ll put boat icons on it,” he says. “We’ll put their family name on it.”

Travel maps feature markers that can be added to signify places people have visited, including a U.S. National Parks map, U.S. professional baseball stadiums map and Ohio state parks map. Lake maps are the most popular option with layers portraying the depth of the lake, including the Great Lakes, Aurora Lake and Chippewa Lake.

Maps can become a sentimental memento, such as one daughter who got a map of the golf course her late father designed and a Portage Lakes one that served as a lasting memory.

“She bought a Portage Lakes map, and they threw her husband’s ashes out in the middle of the water, so they put a heart where the ashes are,” Celek recalls.

Shop Little Oaks Market to see his MapCuts showroom, where pieces range from 40-by-60-inch-tall park maps to small map magnets. Also find local vendors such as landscape paintings by Nancy Gregg Fine Art of Stow, Blushing Bark wooden flowers from Wadsworth, Ms. Takes By the Lake beach glass jewelry and more.

Stop by his booth at Made in Ohio Art & Craft Festival at Hale Farm & Village Sept. 4 to 6 or Ohio Mart at Stan Hywet Hall & Gardens Oct. 1 to 4 — you might see someone dressed as the Map Daddy mascot, which is a globe with a smiling face.

Started from a garage project and upscaled to a large production, MapCuts has grown into one of the top map makers. Celek still enjoys talking with customers at shows and hearing their stories.

“People will message us and tell us … the person was super happy for it,” he says. “They can give somebody that has everything already something that’s meaningful.”

3473 Wyoga Lake Road, Stow, mapcuts.com