The Denver Post has a piece that is simultaneously a profile of Christopher Lane, proprietor of the Denver-based Philadelphia Print Shop West (which sells its share of antique maps) and a look at the Rocky Mountain Map Society’s upcoming Map Month. Its theme, “Illusions, Delusions & Confusions,” will be explored by a series of lectures at the Denver Public Library running from 2 May to 9 June and two concurrent exhibitions on myths in maps at Denver’s Central Library and at the Map Library of the University of Colorado Boulder: brochure, program (PDF). [via]
Month: April 2016
Herb Lester, Travel Guide Publisher
Gear Patrol interviews Ben Olins and Jane Smillie, the founders of travel guide publisher Herb Lester Associates. “[A]fter designing three unique maps in three major cities, they realized there was something to the idea of curating small guides (nothing too expensive, or too ordinary) accompanied by hand-drawn maps. As the company celebrates its sixth birthday this month, we caught up with the founders to chat about maps with personality, curating entire cities and the pitfalls of travel.” Amazon [NLS Maps]
The RPG Maps of Dyson’s Dodecahedron
Dyson’s Dodecahedron started out as a blog about role-playing games that over time transformed itself into a source of dungeon maps; the impetus was a dungeon he’d written up for a one-page dungeon contest:
I wasn’t happy with the map I drew for that dungeon, and started looking at the maps drawn by other members of my various RPG groups. I started to develop a new style for my maps. Not an “original” style overall—it is strongly based in the cartography I enjoyed from old Palladium and Chaosisum products, but significantly less like the style of the traditional D&D map which is very grid-oriented.
Then I started to post maps drawn in this style. As I practiced the style, I challenged myself to draw a geomorph every other day until I had at least 100 geomorphs. The blog got pretty boring during this stretch, but I learned a lot about mapping and dungeon design, and the blog got a reputation as a mapping blog.
Dyson’s archive of maps is now quite extensive; the maps are generally free for personal use and available under various licences. He’s also got a Patreon page. [Boing Boing]
Using Clouds to Map Life
NASA Earth Observatory: “Clouds may seem like distant, ephemeral features that have little to do with life on Earth. In fact, they affect everything from the viability of ecosystems, to how much carbon plants absorb, to the reproductive success of reptiles. So by mapping clouds, new research shows, scientists can indirectly map life.”
Rather than doing a gift guide to map books for the holiday season, as I’ve done in previous years (2015, 2014, 2013), I’ve created a Map Books of 2016 page, organized by month, that I’ll be updating throughout the year as new titles are announced. Possibly you will find it useful.
Fuller Update
The Bristol Post reports on artist Gareth Wood (aka Fuller), whose iconic London Town—now acquired (as an archival print) by the British Library—was preceded by a similar map of Bristol. An exhibition of his work, called Get Lost, will run from 5 to 26 May at the Palm Tree Gallery, 291 Portobello Road, London, W10 5TD. [WMS]
Previously: Fuller: London Town.
Update: BBC News on institutions’ acquisitions of Fuller’s art.
Andy Woodruff Q&A
A Q&A with mapmaker Andy Woodruff, whose work has been featured here from time to time (Beyond the Sea, Islands of Boston). [Alex Chaucer]
Cielo e Terra
Another Italian map exhibit to tell you about: 1716-2016 Cielo e Terra, featuring the cartographic holdings of Rome’s Biblioteca Casanatense, including the 1716 celestial and terrestrial globes of Amanzio Moroncelli, opens tomorrow and runs until 28 November. [WMS]
Previously: When Italy Drew the World.
The Pre-Siege Maps of Malta
Produced by the Malta Map Society and Maltese publisher BDL, Albert Ganado and Joseph Schirò’s Pre-Siege Maps of Malta “embraces all the pre-siege separate maps of Malta, whether manuscript or printed, as well as the appearance of Malta on the maps of the Mediterranean drawn by Ptolemy in the second century AD, by Al-Idrisi in 1157, and by practically all the cartographers that came after them up to 1564.” More from the Times of Malta. Not available at Amazon, but can be purchased directly from the publisher. [WMS/WMS]
Rail Travel in Ukraine
This interactive map of the number of intercity rail trips between Ukrainian cities would be a little easier for me to parse if I could read Ukrainian, but I agree with Aleks Buczkowski’s assessment that it’s well designed. [Geoawesomeness]
Human-Annotated Maps for Self-Driving Cars
Self-driving cars need extremely detailed and comprehensive maps in order to work—far more detailed than what’s usually available. Paradoxically, Vox’s Timothy B. Lee reports, that’s going to require significant human labour, in the form of human analysts annotating the map. “As Google and its competitors expand their self-driving vehicle programs nationwide, they’re going to have to hire thousands of human analysts to produce the detailed maps that enable cars to drive safely.” [MAPS-L]
The WSJ Reviews China at the Center
Here’s a review in the Wall Street Journal of the Asian Art Museum’s exhibition, China at the Center, which I’ve told you about before.
The show includes portraits of both as well as a half-dozen books to evoke the libraries each brought and the impact they had. Most helpful, however, are two large touchscreens, one for each map, that allow us to access translations and summaries of many of the texts. This quickly becomes addictive, because the journey is full of surprises. Here, we read about scientific theories or descriptions based on travelers’ accounts. There, we learn how best to capture a unicorn.
[WMS]
Previously: China at the Center; Upcoming Symposium: Reimagining the Globe and Cultural Exchange.
A Q&A with Fantasy Cartographer Jonathan Roberts
Quartz’s Corinne Purtill has a Q&A with fantasy cartographer Jonathan Roberts, who drew the maps in The Lands of Ice and Fire (see my review). Roberts has a lot of interesting things to say about his work, the differences between the Game of Thrones TV show and the books, and fantasy map design in general. (I spoke to Purtill a few days ago while she was preparing this piece, and did my best to offer some background on fantasy maps in general.)
Green Mars
Kenneth Field’s map of Mars (note updated link) now includes an option to add oceans, with checkboxes to fill the landscape to various elevations.
You can irrigate the planet below the areoid on this map using the water layers. You’ll notice the water layers aren’t blue. On Earth, water appears blue due to red, orange, yellow and green wavelengths of light being absorbed more strongly than blue and also the reflectence of the blue sky. Since Mars has relatively little atmosphere and it’s farther from the sun it’s likely water will appear differently. We’re imagining wavelengths will be absorbed differently, perhaps returning an alien green?
[Maps Mania] A print version is also available: it’s a one-gigabyte PDF that measures 38″×72″ [Kenneth Field].
Previously: Kenneth Field’s Map of Mars.
A Look at the Osher Map Library
Edgar Allen Beem’s essay in the May/June issue of Humanities serves as a good introduction to the Osher Map Library, a major map collection housed at the University of Southern Maine in Portland. The Osher Map Library turns up a lot in my online cartographic perambulations; it’s good to know the history and origins of the place and the people working there (e.g. faculty scholar Matthew Edney, who also directs the History of Cartography project, and director Ian Fowler, who joined in 2014).