Category: Maps

Update: the function below doesn’t appear to be working anymore and I can’t find a replacement.

Making a map online is easy, but the results are usually awfully cluttered. Microsoft Research has a map application that takes the results of bing maps and renders it as a “sketchy”, treasure or European or American style map. The first one seems to be drawn on a soiled napkin, the second on old brown paper, complete with a red X. They’ve decluttered the maps, making them look hand-drawn and with only the major roadways indicated.
My results are below — the X marks a restaurant we’re eating at tomorrow in Santa Fe. They are certainly uncluttered, but some of the street names are uncommon (there’s no sign I’ve ever seen that calls Cerrillos Rd the Turquoise Trail, and it’s not really marked as Rt 14 until it gets out of town). Despite that, I’d certainly send one of these maps to someone before the standard online map.
To try it yourself, go to bing maps, and download the “bing maps” plugin for your browser (you’ll have to restart your browser after the download). Once you’ve done that, this link should take you to the plug in. Now click on “map apps” at the bottom of the page, and find “Destination Maps.” Once you’ve clicked on that, there are instructions to create a map….

Standard online map

Sketchy (or napkin) map

Treasure map

European style map

American style map

We’ve been in Santa Fe about 6 weeks now, and I’m getting lost (or at least turned around) less and less every day. In giving directions to our place over the phone, we’ve found the biggest issue is the pronunciation of the street names — how do you say, for instance, “Callecita”? The “ll” is pronounced “y” by some, and “ll” by others. The other one is “Cordova”—is the second “o” a long “o” sound or a sort of “u” sound, is the first syllable stressed or the second? (Answer: stress the first syllable, pronounce the second “o” as the “u” in “must.”)
Over on Slate there’s been a series on signs, subtitled “how they tell us where to go.” Recently there was a post entitled Do You Draw Good Maps?, about Paul Stiff, a reader in typography and graphic communication at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, and who’s been looking at hand-drawn maps for three decades. (Like the one to the left.)

Stiff believes that we amateurs have something to teach the pros. Our maps are efficient—they edit out unnecessary information. They often include what Stiff calls “an error detector, something that tells you something’s gone wrong.” (If you see the red barn, you’ve gone too far.) They adhere not to mapmaking norms but to the user’s particular needs.

Check out the post here, as well as the rest of the series.

After my post on maps the other day, Jeannie commented that I should check out illustrator Christoph Niemann’s Abstract City blogpost. She said “It’s called ‘My Way’ and is very mappish.” Since many of you probably didn’t see her comment, I thought I’d make it a full blown post, as the maps are very silly and fun. That’s one of them to the left. Check them out here.

Left, map cuff links (found here). Middle, a piece from Elizabeth LeCourt‘s line of art in the form of clothing made from detailed maps of the world. Right, Katharine Harmon has a new book, The Map as Art, a compilation of artists who use maps as inspiration for their works as well as maps of their own interpretations. I wrote about her previous book about maps: You Are Here.

We had Thanksgiving dinner last week at friends who collect quite a bit of contemporary, local art. There’s always something new to see on their walls every time we visit. For this visit, they had invited several local artists — including Imi Lehmbrock-Hirschinger who paints and draws aerial landscapes, concentrating on the Sacramento Valley area. One similar to the one on the left, with those wonderful colors, was hung in the dining room to admire while we gorged on turkey and stuffing. You can see Imi’s work here and here.