Something I decided to do for practice and for fun last week was to design a map. That map will be for maybe a hundred – or perhaps two hundred - square-blocks-equivalent of a city that does not exist outside of my imagination. The map is being designed with the assistance of the Adobe Illustrator graphic design software, specifically the CS4 version.
That most professional graphic designers have – by choice or necessity – moved on to other software cannot matter for this exercise. The point is to demonstrate that I understand the power of the tools that I have available to me now. I can adapt as needed to more recently produced tool kits later, once I get this job-seeking exercise done.
I had thought simply to crib as it were from the OC Transpo system map’s Centretown/ByWard Market inset for most of the raw material I need for this project: outlines of sidewalks and parking accessways, of buildings, of parklands, of roadbeds…and the list could go on. That may yet be a mistake I can avoid. That inset might better serve me as an inspiration of what I can design “by hand” in Illustrator. Looking at the details of those outlines, I can better imagine original parts for my mythical city “from scratch”.
Perhaps later, I might move on to grabbing screenshots from Google Earth or SVG linework from OpenStreetMap.org to embellish either this project or others yet to begin. The need to master the existing tools to whatever degree I can remains, though.
You’ll have noticed that I am rather fixated on maps here. I think I can praise – some might say “blame”, but never mind such people – the cross-country travels my family used to take when my father was alive, and we were all a lot younger. The move from Manitoba to Saskatchewan, our travels between our home and the hometowns – or nearby farms – of assorted relatives, a cross-border trip to Yellowstone National Park in the States, cross-country journeys by highway to and from Nanaimo and Charlottetown…all of these taught me the value of a good map or road atlas.
Moving to Ottawa taught me the value of a good street atlas in particular. Navigating what was then some twenty municipalities in two provinces was an exercise in confusion as much as entertainment. And all of this taught me another value: that of good design in maps and atlases of whatever kind you care to name.
Designed Maps, written by
Cynthia Brewer, is an exercise in exploring all the various kinds of maps you can try to make. As a reference book on the subject, I’d say it’s worth tracking down either via your general-interest bookstore, or perhaps a specialty shop like Ottawa’s
World of Maps on Wellington West near the Parkdale Market.
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