Food for thought: The first 10 maps that come to mind

Aside from artistic translations of what a new map should be, I thought I’d go back to basics this morning and decided to write, very briefly, about the first ten maps that came to mind. This turned into twelve, but I think that thinking inside the box for a minute and really pointing out the basics can help in creating our own mapping techniques. As I mentioned, these are the first that came to mind, there may be others and these may not be everyone’s ten (or more if you’re on a roll). This is the order I wrote them down in but reading through them there would be a definite order in terms of scale and clusters of types.

ONE: The world map

So this is probably the most obvious start but it got me thinking about the techniques employed in actually creating it, before we knew it was round and way before we could see it from space. Maybe that’s another line of enquiry in itself outside of the remit of this research. There’s also the dymaxion version, as pictured above.

TWO: Friendship connections

Not too long ago, a Facebook whiz kid developed this map depicting connections. He used data from 10,000,000 profiles of Facebook users from around the world to create it and I feel it is a very telling representation in a number of ways. You can read more about it here.

“Visualizing data is like photography. Instead of starting with a blank canvas, you manipulate the lens used to present the data from a certain angle.”

THREE: The marauders map

Possibly the real reason I started this post is that this randomly popped into my head. I’m sure everyone is familiar with it as a fictional piece but I was wondering if there was an element of our investigations into programming Mr. Mindstorm, or the grown up version, that could take the basic ideas from here.

FOUR: The map from the Adjustment Bureau

Following on the film theme, the map used in the Adjustment Bureau is also pretty interesting. More analysis on this will follow in a later post.


FIVE: The London underground map

If lots of things go on under the ground then this is potentially the most well recognised. It’s one of the things perceived as being useful, despite all the other non mapped elements that are crucial in serving the city. It’s also interesting in the way it connects points and nodes. Variations and interpretations of this map have been done to death but it still goes on the list.

SIX: Situationists

Fresh in the mind from Friday’s presentations, the situationists map is somewhat of an icon for those looking at mapping from an A&U perspective. Out of interest, take a look at this .

SEVEN: Manhattan / City map

Possibly one of the most iconic city maps has to be New York, especially in the context of my own research last year. The city map in general offers us a top down view detached from experience and to some extents could be regarded as somewhat fictional, despite being the most useful of tools . Take a peek at this. The interactive map is interesting.

EIGHT: Road map / OS map

With the advent of GPS these are typically nowhere near as widely used as they once were. The first result of a search for “road map” brings google maps, aa route planners and other digital solutions. It’s the colour coding and layering techniques that are important here. The standard has been set.

NINE: Constellation map

The ability to make recognisable connections between otherwise random events? Mapping out cities based on this goes way back.

TEN: Radar

I’m not entirely sure why this was on my radar but its an interesting concept nonetheless. It was the technology that guides aeroplanes and submarines that first came to mind.

ELEVEN: Treasure Map

It’s the journey and the reading of objects and landmarks that’s particularly important in this case. I suppose I could have used orienteering as the example but where’s the fun in that. Also, it demonstrates how even with a limited amount of information you can still make sense of the physical reference.

TWELVE: Relief map

Ending on a slightly more serious note, this is another type that came to mind. This includes two and three dimensional types, and essential part of mapping physical geography. This is an interesting tool if you’re interested. Also see this for representational techniques.