The many types of decorative and pictorial maps...
- Advertisement The power of maps can be used to draw consumer attention in magazine and newspaper ads. These maps can be created to show...
- Locations of wineries in a wine region.
- Air routes of an airline.
- Sites to see if traveling to a particular city.
- Tourism Maps can be for specific sites found in a city or region that would be of interest to tourists. These maps usually have a small amount of geographical information and can whet the appetite of a tourist to want to go see the sites. They may also be in guide books.
- Propaganda Geographical propaganda can be presented on a poster map. They are designed to catch attention and interest. These may include...
- City maps hanging in the Chamber of Commerce showing desirable locations.
- Map of branch locations hanging in a bank.
- Map of franchise locations hanging in a restaurant or hotel.
- Map of destinations hanging in a travel agent or airline office.
- Publishing Text books are obvious. Less obvious, but seemingly very popular, are maps illustrating a point in a published book. This seems to have gained wide acceptance in cookbooks focused on a particular location and travel essay books. Also popular are maps in fantasy books that give a sense of location for the story. These types of maps are also very popular in magazines and give great opportunity for expression to match the location or story.
- Games and puzzles A lot of popular board games rely on maps to move pieces on. An interesting take on this theme are games like Carcassonne where players create unique maps by laying individual tiles.
- Private use Maps to weddings or birthdays are excellent opportunities for people to create memorable maps in anticipation of the event.
- Commissioned work Map artists may be commissioned to create a unique mural or decorative map for a particular client.
- Road maps While the ubiquitous road atlas may pop into mind, there are many other
Use of maps to create a perception of a nation have often been employed as propaganda historically. Whether the expanse of the British Empire, or the historic Fatherland of the Third Reich, maps have served to visually impress idealistic points.
Decorative maps show geographic information in spatial context
Geography is the study of the Earth. This includes the physical aspects that include natural features (water, geology, vegetation, etc.) and man-made features (buildings, cities, roads, etc.). This also means cultural aspects...
Physical aspects are the most common aspects of maps. Road atlases, vegetation maps, geologic maps are widespread. Cultural maps are usually portrayed as thematic maps such as poltical maps or historical home ranges of particular groups of people.
Decorative and pictorial maps can go much further than these fact-based information-dense maps. They can begin to answer why the map is as it is.
For example...
- Physical map of Florida. A decorative map can explain why it is a peninsula shape with lively and colorful description and analysis.
- Cultural map of historic trade routes. A maps showing the location and routes of historical trade is informative,but rather bland. Adding artwork of relavent people, modes of transport, and items traded add valuable information that is accessible instantly along with the trade routes.
Thematic maps can be decorative, too
I am not generally a fan of thematic maps. They typically are too focused on information and usually seem oblivious to good visual design. Most are pale and uninteresting.
However, there are some thematic designs I really like. You can see one example on my map design texture page.
My view of current thematic mapping is also boosted by research shown on the ThematicMapping.org website. Decorative thematic mapping! I really like cartographers who push the envelope, such as Richard Eades Harrison. And that is what ThematicMapping.org is doing... pushing the envelope of thematic map design.