2012-08-30
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From jocochrane, the cover of g2 containing Oliver Burkeman’s excellent article on how Google and Apple’s digital mapping is mapping us. Some choice quotes:
In an era of previously unimagined opportunities for exploring the far-off and strange, we want mainly to stare at ourselves.
It’s hard to interpret the occasional aerial snapshot of your garden as a big issue when the phone in your pocket is assembling a real-time picture of your movements, preferences and behaviour.
What happens when we come to see the world, to a significant extent, through the eyes of a handful of big companies based in California?
2012-05-18
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Three books by Capital Transport Publishing on the history of London’s underground maps: No Need To Ask by David Leboff & Tim Demuth, Mr Beck’s Underground Map by Ken Garland, and Underground Maps After Beck by Maxwell J Roberts.
Taken together, the three cover over a hundred years of maps of the Underground, from the different companies in the early part of the 1900s, through the pivotal 1933 Harry Beck diagram, and to the present day. The writers are all well qualified (Tim Demuth, co-author of No Need To Ask, designed the London Railways map of the 1970s; Ken Garland is a respected designer and writer; while Maxwell Roberts has designed his own maps aided by his primary study of cognition) and, despite some overlaps between the books, generally they cover the story very well.
Probably the most interesting is the middle volume, covering both the route to the Beck diagram, his many variations over the years as lines were extended (and management meddled), and the nearly decade-long fight to keep designing the map in the early 1960s. The book includes the worst diagram since 1933, the Hutchinson design, and a first look at the Garbutt diagram that came to succeed it.
The Garbutt diagram and its slow evolution (as opposed to the Cambrian explosion of variations that Beck produced) is at the heart of the final book, which I think I enjoyed more than many would; the story is one of subtle change, livened mainly by the changing landscape of the system (with the Victoria, Jubilee, and DLR lines expanding the scope of the map).
Overall, I’d recommend Garland’s book on Beck’s diagrams to anyone with even a passing interest in the Underground and mapmaking. Roberts is more for the completist, while those looking for history and more decorative design may enjoy No Need To Ask.
2012-04-24
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Four of the many, many different map overlays at the London Profiler site. Sadly the data is a little out of date (it looks like it hasn’t been updated since around 2008; I first saw it in 2009), but it’s still fun to play with for a while.
(The images are captioned, but if you’re really curious about what’s displayed, I’d urge you to check out the maps in full.)
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Screenshots of Oliver O’Brien’s Geodemographics of Housing in Great Britain, a map of the 2010 Index of Multiple Depravation in the style of Charles Booth’s famous Poverty Map of the late 1800s. Read more here.
The last three photos show one of the more interesting (to me, anyway) parts of this map: the divide between Waltham Forest (largely red and orange) and Redbridge (largely green) in east London. The areas always felt somewhat similar in terms of housing stock to me, but they show up very differently here. Perhaps part of that is transport related: the railway you can see running through the latter is the Central line, which goes directly to the middle of the city.
2012-04-06
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The Høje Målebordsblade, is mosaic 1 of several hundred individual 1:20,000 sheets and was the first official civilian topographical map of Denmark. The survey, by the Generalstabens topografiske Afdeling, was done between 1842–1895, with the first lithographic sheets published in 1862. Here is the same mosaic, with everything (except Bornholm) in the right place and in proper geographical context.
The original site has a beautiful 4344✕4510 pixel version that I hope you visit.
(Edit: Thanks to Rocío for correcting the Danish.)
2012-03-26
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Pinterest side-effect: shuffling maps.stamen.com tiles when posting via bookmarklet.
2012-03-08
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2012-03-07
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Three maps of London from the 1600s, showing Wren’s plan and how it completely failed to come into existence. (via, via, via.)
Top: A Plan for Rebuilding the City of London after the Great Fire in 1666; Designed by that Great Architect Sr Chrisr. Wren; & approved by King and Parliament, but unhappily defeated by Faction.
Bottom left: A Map or Grovndplot Of The Citty Of London, With The Svbvrbes Thereof.
Bottom right: Large And Accurate Map Of The City Of London. Ichnographically describing all the Streets, Lanes, Alleys, Courts, Yards, Churches, Halls and Houses, &c.
2012-02-29
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A screenshot of part of the Scale Adaptive Projection widget, which lets you zoom and manipulate a map of the earth so you can see how different projections (and their use at different scales and latitudes) distort views of the world. (via, via)
2012-02-21
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Maps of London and New York by Isotype Institute (1944)
I rarely repost things that are this popular, but how could I not note this comparison of the growth of two of my favourite cities, and the wonderful way the Isotype designers made their growth clear?
As well as the obvious difference between the organic and grid layouts in the two, I also noticed the small changes in water use (note the new Millwall docks on the Isle of Dogs) in London and the much more obvious infilling in New York and New Jersey.
(via seanaes)
