Adventures In Mapping

On a recent trip to the Netherlands I had some chats about reviving a vintage style of Dutch waterway navigation and planning printed maps for use with current, digital, data. The inspiration came from Dirkzwager’s Guide, a book of local waterway maps. Turns out the Dutch are really interested in waterway planning and the modifiable … Continue reading New Amsterdam Style

Here is a map made using a new extended version of the My Precious style (direct link to the style description). It shows the World Wildlife Fund’s terrestrial biomes and labels from the Living Atlas World Landforms. Lakes and rivers come from Project Linework. The font is Aniron by Pete Klassen. Happy Mapping! John Continue reading LOTR Americas

Here are a couple maps made to resemble the epic collaboration of JRR (oops, turns out it was Christopher) Tolkien and Pauline Baynes. I would consume every little pen stroke as a kid, poring over the insert maps of Middle Earth in my sister’s LOTR set (which mysteriously now live on my shelf)… The two … Continue reading Middle Earth Map Style

I’ve made a set of color resources and a protocol for how/where to apply them, here. Here are some maps of here and there using this style… UK Columbia River Gorge Cumberland Gap Grand Canyon Isle Royale Italy Leelanau Peninsula Madagascar San Marino Scotland Try it out! But be warned, it has the power to … Continue reading Imhof Style Resource

I’ve been working on an ArcGIS Pro style to let map makers apply hillshades and atmospheric effects in a manner hopefully reminiscent of Swiss cartographer Eduard Imhof‘s Walensee topographic painting. Anyway, it’s a Friday afternoon and I’ll be thinking about this all weekend so at least I can post these pictures (quickly cobbled together with incomplete … Continue reading Imhof Wold Map Mega-Alpha-Prototype

These were made as part of a series describing how to make woodcut block print maps in real life and digitally (which is also real life). Part I: Pixels to Grain Part II: Pro-ification Part III: Custom Fonts Part IV: Wild With Styles   Continue reading Block Print Maps of Hawaii and the Columbia River Gorge

This September I’ll be traveling to the Esri Netherlands GIS Conference where I’ll be leading a one-day pre-conference cartography workshop. Here are three of the maps we’ll be creating together, with lots of mini-map sessions sandwiched in-between. An Imhof-inspired physical map of Switzerland… A watercolor style map of the Netherlands… And a Firefly map aggregating … Continue reading Three Maps