Building A Story Many modern cartographers grew up with fantasy maps. For some, it was their introduction to cartography. A map can bring a audience into a world by giving it life and color before they read the first word. J. R. R. Tolkien established the pop culture idea of a fantasy map with his …
Making Fantasy Mountains: Lessons Learned from Fictional Landscapes Read More »
Introduction In my current work I produce many maps of lowland, riverine regions. As part of producing interesting terrain to support these maps I have developed some tricks to highlight low-lying features that conventional terrain shading might miss. I will share these tricks, along with thoughts I use to guide my cartography, in this series …
As much as the Swiss Style defines antique cartography, it also is not a monolith – nor is it representative of the many other schools of cartography in the 18th – 20th century. As I have continued to experiment with recreating vintage styles in digital maps, I have increasingly become more interested in naturalistic coloring. …
Vintage Shaded Relief in Photoshop Pt. 2: Naturalistic Coloring Read More »
In cartography, the Swiss reign supreme. Swiss-style cartography is recognized globally as the standard to match for detail, beauty, and pedigree. Of course, this means everyone else wants to figure out what makes this style work. One of the first Swiss masters was Eduard Imhof ( 25 January 1895 – 27 April 1986 ) , …