Past Practices, Contemporary Applications

Jake Coolidge
Jake Coolidge Cartography

This talk will reflect upon recent experiences drawing large, geographically complex regions by hand, a practice that brings into sharp relief the many decisions at the core of the cartographer's craft--generalization and abstraction, label placement, the symbolization of features, among others--in an era where geographic information systems can automate many of these tasks and obscure the process from the map designer. I use hand-drawn map-making to reconnect with these processes in a tangible way, while invoking pre-digital maps made in the mid-20th century. I argue that reclaiming these practices in a contemporary context allows us to augment how we imagine places and to rediscover a broader set of tools for graphically expressing geographic phenomena.

NACIS 2014

Transcript

1. Past Practices, Contemporary Applications a talk presented at the 2014 Annual Meeting of the North American Cartographic Information Society by Jake Coolidge, October 10, 2014
2. California on display at the NACIS 2012 Map Gallery, Portland, 2012. California, 2012. detail
3. Drawing The Columbia River Watershed, early 2014.
4. detail from Graceland Cemetery Guide and Map, 2014.
5. The Western Shore of Lake Michigan, currently in development.
6. Christopher Dunn, Northeast Portland. 2009. Phil Thompson, Lakefront Currents. 2013. Jenni Sparks, Berlin. 2013. Stephen Walter, The Island: London. 2006-08. www.handmaps.org
7. detail from California, 2012.
8. Stephen Walter, detail from The Island: London. 2006-08.
9. Erwin Raisz, detail from Landforms of the United States, 6th revised edition, 1957.
10. Tau Rho Alpha, Marybeth Gerin, and James M. Joyce, Oblique Map of the Gulf of Alaska. 1980. detail
11. Past Practices
12. John Norden, 1607. Martin Waldseemüller, 1507. Jost Murer, 1566.
13. Christopher J.R. Tolkien, Map of Middle Earth. 1954. Erwin Raisz, Landform Map of China. 1949. Arthur H. Robinson, The Belfort Saddle. 1940. Richard Edes Harrison, The Not So Soft Underside. 1943.
14. Excerpt from Map of Middle Earth. 1954. Christopher J.R. Tolkien
15. The Belfort Saddle. 1940. The Isthmus of Suez. 1940. Fig. 1 from “A method for producing shaded relief from areal slope data”, Annals of the AAG, 1946. Arthur H. Robinson
16. Richard Edes Harrison Published in Fortune, 1940. Published in Fortune, 1944. From Great Adventures and Explorations, by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 1947.
17. Richard Edes Harrison Published in Fortune, 1943.
18. Erwin J. Raisz Adapted from Landform Map of the United States, 6th revision 1957, from California Patterns: A Geographical and Historical Atlas, 1983.
19. Erwin J. Raisz
20. Contemporary Applications
23. “Make a map not a tracing!” —Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari. A Thousand Plateaus: Capitalism and Schizophrenia. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1987.
24. Map Sources: Google Earth, Google Maps National Atlas Streamer Natural Earth OpenStreetMap USGS Topographic Quad Series Wikipedia
25. Google Maps Google Earth National Atlas Streamer Wikipedia OpenStreetMap 0.2 in
27. “Unlike tracings, which propagate redundancies, mappings discover new worlds within past and present ones; they inaugurate new grounds upon the hidden traces of a living context.” —James Corner, “The Agency of Mapping: Speculation, Critique and Invention” in Cosgrove, Denis, Mappings London: Reaktion Books, 1999.
29. “(the author of a hand-drawn map) naturally labors under some graphic constraints. It is true today and it was true a thousand years ago. These constraints include his own understanding of the intricacies of graphic perception, his manual ability, and, of course, the limitations of the media with which he works...Other than the sizes of skins, paper, or walls upon which to draw, he really does not have much in the way of restraints imposed upon him. “Cartographically speaking, for better or worse, the manuscript map maker is his own master.” —Arthur H. Robinson. “Mapmaking and map printing: the evolution of a working relationship” in Woodward, David, ed. Five Centuries of Map Printing. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1975. (emphasis added)
30. Dunn, Christopher. Northeast Portland. 2009. http://www.handmaps.org/maps/ hand_drawn_map_portland_ne.jpg Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Walter, Stephen. The Island: London Series. 2006-2008. http://www.stephenwalter. co.uk/wp/maps/the-island-london-series Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Thompson, Phil. Lakefront Currents. 2013. http://capehorn-illustration.com/ lakefront_currents.html Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Sparks, Jenni. Berlin. 2013. http://jennisparks.com/Hand-Drawn-Map-of-Berlin Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Hand Drawn Mapping Association. http://www.handmaps.org Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Raisz, Erwin J. Landforms of the United States, 6th revised edition, 1957. Cambridge: Institute of Geographical Exploration, Harvard University. David Rumsey Map Collection. http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/ s/0v89k0 Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Alpha, Tau Rho, Marybeth Gerin, and James M. Joyce. Oblique Map of the Gulf of Alaska. Reston, Va.: United States Geological Survey. David Rumsey Map Collection. http://www.davidrumsey.com/luna/servlet/s/kbonkt Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Waldseemüller, Martin. Universalis cosmographia secundum Ptholomaei traditionem et Americi Vespucii alioru[m]que lustrationes. 1507. Library of Congress. http://www.loc.gov/item/2003626426/ Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Murer, Jost. Map of the Zürich Canton. 1566. In: Eduard Imhof, Cartographic Relief Presentation. Redlands, Ca.: ESRI Press, 2007. Norden, John. Description of the Honor of Windsor. 1607. In: Leo Bagrow and R.A. Skelton, History of Cartography. 2nd Ed. Chicago: Precedent Publishing, 1985. Tolkien, Christopher J.R. Map of Middle Earth. 1954. In: J.R.R. Tolkien, The Lord of the Rings. 2nd Ed. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. 1993. Robinson, Arthur H. The Belfort Saddle. In: Roderick Peattie, Geography and Human Destiny. 1940. New York: George W. Stewart. Harrison, Richard E. The Not-So-Soft Underside. In: Fortune. 1943. Library of Congress online exhibition, “Churchill and the Great Republic.” http://www. loc.gov/exhibits/churchill Accessed 8 Apr. 2013. Raisz, Erwin J. Landform Map of China. In: David Greenhood. Mapping. 1964. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press. www.jakecoolidgecartography.com jakecoolidge@gmail.com Sources for images used, in order of appearance
31. Robinson, Arthur H. The Isthmus of Suez. In: Roderick Peattie, Geography and Human Destiny, 1940. New York: George W. Stewart. Robinson, Arthur H. Fig. 1 from “A method for producing shaded relief from areal slope data”, Annals of the AAG, 36 (4): 248-252. 1946. Harrison, Richard E. The World According to Standard. In: Fortune. 1940. Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library. http://maps.bpl. org/id/m8742 Accessed 8 Apr. 2013. Harrison, Richard E. Eight Views of the World. In: Look at the World: the Fortune Atlas of World Strategy, New York: Knopf. 1944. Norman B. Leventhal Map Center, Boston Public Library. http://maps.bpl.org/id/m8667 Accessed 8 Apr. 2013. Harrison, Richard E. In: Great Adventures and Explorations, by Vilhjalmur Stefansson, 1947. New York: Dial Press. Raisz, Erwin J. Adapted from Landform Map of the United States, 6th revision, 1957, In: David Hornbeck, David L. Fuller, and Phillip S. Kane. California Patterns: A Geographical and Historical Atlas, Palo Alto, Ca.: Mayfield. 1983. Raisz, Erwin J., Robert L. Williams, and U.S. Office of the Quartermaster General, Environmental Protection Section. Landform Map of Alaska. 1966. Raisz Maps. http://www.raiszmaps.com/images/Alaska-8.jpg Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Google Maps. http://maps.google.com Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Smith, F.L. “Mount Hood Oregon With Snow.” Wikipedia http://en.wikipedia. org/wiki/Mount_Hood#mediaviewer/File:Mounthoodoregonwithsnow.jpg OpenStreetMap. http://openstreetmap.org Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. National Atlas Streamer. http://nationalmap.gov/streamer/webApp/streamer. html Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. Google Earth. Accessed 3 Oct. 2014. All other images 2012–2014 by the author. Sources for images used, in order of appearance, continued