17 replies to this topic

[frax]

Have anyone done any small personal touches to be discovered by other geeks in a map? A colleague of mine put in his small home town (or settlement) in Norway (50 inhabitants) in his world atlas (on the europe map).

I haven't done anything like this... yet. But I love pranks and games, so perhaps I should!

[Hans van der Maarel]

I haven't done so, but I know it happens. There's a few samples in "How To Lie With Maps" by Mark Monmonier.

[Lori Martin]

There's a few samples in "How To Lie With Maps" by Mark Monmonier.

I just received this book today and had a quick look at lunch time. I would love my GIS colleagues to read it!

[ELeFevre]

A colleague of mine put in his small home town (or settlement) in Norway (50 inhabitants) in his world atlas (on the europe map).

That's really funny. Artists can't resist signing their work in their own way.

[Kartograph]

Hi folks!

AFAIK there are even some companies (mostly road-mapping and the like) who add the odd easter egg as a means of copy protection (stuff like a small lake or a fantasy road). My Prof told me there is even a bunch of lawyers who specialize in lawsuits of that kind, as copying is one of the darker sides of the mapping trade, at least in germany.

Regards,

Andreas

[Hans van der Maarel]

Andreas,

I thought we were not supposed to talk about that

And yeah, I've done that a few times as well...

[Rick Dey]

Speaking from the commercial map side I can tell you this is common. A former company I worked for (large, Chicago area, Corporation in Skokie) had something on every map and it was documented in the files for each map. All of my three sons and my wife have had small deadend streets in obscure locations named after them. A colleague I worked with had named some unnamed water features on a map after his daughter, only to have it picked up later on "official" sources and be adopted as the generally used name.

Having said that I can also tell you that at CSAA we don't incorporate any of these devices. When we have had to identify a map that was copied in violation of copyright, we've been able to determine it by carefully examining the map in question and simply noting various idiosyncrasies like type placement or road alignment.

[Hans van der Maarel]

A colleague I worked with had named some unnamed water features on a map after his daughter, only to have it picked up later on "official" sources and be adopted as the generally used name.

Now that's just the coolest...

I can see both sides to this debate. On one hand you want to protect your investment, as there's often a large amount of time and money involved in map production. On the other hand, you don't want to deliver a map that has deliberate errors in it.

[Dennis McClendon]

It's worth noting that these "copyright traps" no longer provide any protection under U.S. copyright law.

In the 1991 Feist case, the Supreme Court decided that compilations of facts may not be the subject of copyright, although the expression of those facts may be subject to copyright. So the presence or absence of a street--even if deliberately falsified--may legally be copied by someone tracing from your map.

The total look of a map, and selectivity (what cities to put on a globe) are still protected, so that photoreproduction is still a violation of copyright. But gleaning facts from other published maps is perfectly legal.

[David T]

Just joined up the board today, saw this topic, and wanted to add my two cents.

I've had the opportunity to add a couple of personal touches to maps, for the company that I used to work for. It was nothing obvious, and it was 'within the rules' of the map production.

The personal touches I added were legend items. For example, I produced a map of California Counties. In the legend, I identified 'Alpine' county as 'County Name' type - Alpine being the name of my cat. I could have chosen any of counties of California (including my home county). Alpine would have no meaning to anyone other than me.

On another map, of California highways, I placed road shields near my home town freeways, for the road shields used in the legend.

[Themarko]

My wife is from a small town here in my County, one that many people either don't know exists or have only a vague idea of it. So I put it on every map I make just to provide it a little recognition. Not a big thing but I like doing it. Also I sometimes use a Giant Sequoia graphic as a filler element and I photoshopped in a heart with our names on it carved into the tree. It's not even big enough to see at all, but we know it's there.

[Maisie]

Years ago we converted the National Geographic Atlas of the World from conventional to digital format. I was doing quality control; my mission was for the digital version to match the old one EXACTLY.
So...when I found the smiley face among the glacier squiggles in Greenland, I made sure it stayed in the digital version. (Haven't checked newer editions, though.)

[Nick Springer]

Of course, now we all have to pull out our copies and try to find it.

[Hans van der Maarel]

[Runs off to get atlas]

-- edit --

 face.jpg   147.16K   146 downloads

Is this it?

[Maisie]

My apologies for the wild easter egg chase, it wasn't Greenland at all.
Look in grid square N1 on Plate 60.