the jack-o-lantern map of boylan heights

in the 1970s, radical cartographer, denis woods started an nontraditional atlas of his neighborhood in raleigh, north carolina. this image is his attempt at mapping the locations and faces of decorative gourds. the other maps are also worth a looksy.

the image is from dancing and singing: a narrative atlas of boylan heights, unpublished (ca. 1975).

you can read more about this ferly project here and listen about it here.

the gall-peters projection -or- the earth as your imperialist overlords never meant you to see it »

Arno Peters promoted his map as a superior alternative to the Mercator projection, which was suited to navigation but also used commonly in world maps. The Mercator projection increasingly inflates the sizes of regions according to their distance from the equator. This inflation results, for example, in a representation of Greenland that is larger than Africa, whereas in reality Africa is 14 times as large. Since much of the technologically underdeveloped world lies near the equator, these countries appear smaller on a Mercator, and therefore, according to Peters, seem less significant.

On Peters’s projection, by contrast, areas of equal size on the globe are also equally sized on the map. By using his “new” projection, poorer, less powerful nations could be restored to their rightful proportions. This reasoning has been picked up by many educational and religious bodies, leading to adoption of the Gall-Peters projection among some socially concerned groups.

related: the colour green as your imperialist overlords never meant you to see it.

a monument to technology

ragbag reader show & tell day has finally arrived! this is a picture of pixels rendering data from outer space (an interesting take on touristy photos). it was sent in by herman from south africa who is now on holiday in (has the photo revealed it already?) paris, texas.

also: i have removed the logo from herman’s gps unit in case herman is trying to guerilla market me or something.

red state blue, blue state; yellow state, green state

i don’t want to get all political right now, so i will announce this quickly and be on my way: no longer are the official state birds of the united states either red (northern cardinal) or blue (eastern bluebird). there are other colours (and other directions) to add to the mixing bowl. consider the 6 purple states that have adopted the western meadowlark as their official bird. there are also the 5*  (southern) green states that selected the (northern) mockingbird. and thus our former two bird system is now an avian oligarchy.

but seriously states: there are over 1.3 trillion different species of birds native to north america, would it kill you to pick something a little more original and not just copy off of your neighbor? also: when you show off a picture of your state bird and it’s a red cardinal, you are being unimaginative and—frankly—sexist (in birds, sex is determined not by the presence or absence of external genitalia but by the colour of the feathers).

another bird map.

*breaking news (as of 1948): the state bird of south carolina is no longer the northern mockingbird—it is the carolina wren.

nabokov maps ulysses

In 1969, Nabokov told an interviewer, “Instead of perpetuating the pretentious nonsense of Homeric, chromatic, and visceral chapter headings, instructors should prepare maps of Dublin with Bloom’s and Stephen’s intertwining itineraries clearly traced.” Nabokov drew just such a map as part of his lecture notes for Ulysses. via

nabokov? joyce? maps? drawings? this image is a burrito of all my favourite things (note: joyce is the guacamole in this metaphor). would you not have donated a litre of your own spinal fluid to audit this lecture‽ added bonus: you would have been able to pass notes to thomas pynchon!

know this as well: nabokov and joyce actually met eachother once in berlin in 1937. the hungarian national football team figured prominently in that encounter.

providence type map

a good pal of mine from risd whipped up this providence type map in the style of orkposters.com.  third tier cities can be trendy and awesome as well. i’d love to see one with all the neighborhoods of margate, nj. hint. hint.

phelan road

found in a hotel’s printer tray in gander, newfoundland.

chaffinch map of scotland

edwin morgan, the the scots makar, wrote a poem called the chaffinch map of scotland back in 1965. it’s a map that shows what people in different regions of scotland call the chaffinch. here are 10 reasons why it is the bomb diggity:

1. it’s a bona fide poem (literature)
2. it’s an unconventional map (cartography)
3. it’s more than just text—it has its own visual aesthetic (art)
4. it’s about birds and birds are freaky little animals that nobody understands (ornithology)
5. it’s about regional dialects (linguistics)
6. it’s about scotland and scotland has got it going on (scottish nationalism)
7. its typesetting is essential to its execution (typography)
8. it shows how different people see a similar part of their world differently (perspectivism)
9. it’s about something which is named after the sound that it makes (onomatopoeia)
10. a possible (and affirmed) interpretation of it is that the birds change their call from region to region just as humans change their dialect (ornithological linguistics?!?)