Personal Cartographic Conventions

February 2015

With a second big project under my belt, I’m noticing some developing tendencies. I’ll write them down now so that I can decide later to cement or subsume them, or that perhaps I’m simply full of shit.

• Minimize negative space at all costs. Make Tufte proud.
• Bring the ‘cover’ into the map and the map onto the cover.
• Make the physical product as small and dense as sanity allows: a pocketknife of information.
• Legends don’t list things but rather label illustrative imaginary spaces.
• Vivid colors and a full use of the entire range of the color-space.
• Personal authoredness — an eschewing of cartographic authority. Literally a signature.