14 replies to this topic

[Claude]

I thought I'd post a magazine cover that Erin and I just completed. Our goal was to represent nuclear power plants around the world in the standard portrait orientation magazine cover. Obviously a portrait view makes it pretty hard to show the standard landscape world map view (to represent plants in both hemispheres) so we chose to do a translucent globe so that you can see through to the other hemisphere's power plant locations.

Because we couldn't figure out a way to export from ArcMap in an earthd-from-space projection where you can see through to the other side (I'm hoping someone can tell me how this can be done), we ended up exporting to Illy 2 separate hemispherical maps and stacking them in Illustrator. A keen observer pointed out that we also needed to flip the background hemisphere to mimic looking through a glass globe so we used the Reflect tool to flip it.

We would love to hear better ways to create a see-through globe if you feel like making recommendations!

-Claude

Attached Files

•  Nuke_Cover.jpg   253.65K   331 downloads

[frax]

Claude, I am not sure this works - when looking at it, my first instinct was that the blues were ocean. When my eyes got used to it, I had a very hard time trying to figure out where the points are on the other side of the sphere... I see Australia and PNG, but I can't really figure out the distribution of power plants in China and Japan...

[Michael Schmeling]

I thought I'd post a magazine cover that Erin LeFevre and I just completed. Our goal was to represent nuclear power plants around the world in the standard portrait orientation magazine cover. Obviously a portrait view makes it pretty hard to show the standard landscape world map view (to represent plants in both hemispheres) so we chose to do a translucent globe so that you can see through to the other hemisphere's power plant locations.

You could use a Gilbert projection instead, which shows the entire world inside a circle.

[Giasen]

I agree with switching the blue to the oceans. First impression had me thinking there were several dozen nuclear power plants in the north atlantic off the coast of france!

[heath b]

I also had trouble discerning the land masses from the oceans. I understand wanting to maintain the highest transparency in the oceans, so maybe the land masses should just be a different hue?

As it appears that all of the nuclear sites are in the northern hemisphere, I wonder whether you considered a polar azimuthal projection...

I really like the concept of the transparent globe. It just took a while to comprehend...

[MapMedia]

Depending on the tone of the article (humanities, science, political, etc.) you could choose a different design suited for each.
The translucent globe would work for a humanities, soft-policy/science piece - and I agree with prev comments re: lack of illumination in Illy layer trick.
If the article is solidly policy / science based, I would argue to go for a flat, vertical world projection where the countries are simplified and boxy, look as though they are made of Legos (what do we call it?) - abstract can be great for cutting to the chase.

[Rob]

i have figure ground issues with this piece as well but can read it after getting some bearings. congrats on getting the cover.

[Green Palolo]

I think this is a great approach to viewing something on the other side of the globe rather than to the left or right of a map.

[Claude]

Now that I've stepped away from it for a few days, i can definitely see your point about the figure ground issue. I'll try switching around the colors and tweaking transparency. Thanks all for the advice.

[Matthew Hampton]

I really like the concept and am looking forward to seeing the land/ocean figure/ground issue worked a bit. This is quite a difficult challenge. Good work!

The globe looks a little flat. I am wondering if you could somehow create more of a volumetric perspective by shading the "back-side" of the globe's land features differently. Maybe a slight shadow?

I keep thinking of the 2004 CIA factbook cover when I look at it.

[François Goulet]

I keep thinking of the 2004 CIA factbook cover when I look at it.

That's a nice one. On this one, the water and land has two different colors and the "background land" is only tinted by the transparent globe. That could work for you too, but I already liked it when you first posted it, largely because I firstly focused on Australia and the island of New Guinea that I recognized immediately...

[Claude]

What a cool gallery of covers. All these years of consulting the website for the CIA World Factbook and I never realized that there was a hardcopy of the book!

[Gail]

Loved your map, though the reverse round took me ages to see!
It's so revealingly northern hemisphere heavy!!
Hope you don't mind and quoted your comment and a bit of the map
on my tech:compute website, have also attributed it ..
but if you are grumpy about it,..I can dismantle it.
http://www.computesc...nd.com/2016.php
Gail.

[woneil]

Very neat. I'm surprised that so many had trouble seeing it initially -- not something I would have predicted. But perception is everything in a case like this.

The glass globe effect in the CIA Factbook cover is wonderful, but I wonder how much trouble it would be to duplicate.

[Claude]

We actually tweaked it a little bit and I thought I'd post the update. I had a weird moment looking at the old version where I couldn't decipher the countries from the ocean, so I definitely understand the comments of that nature.

We did end up sticking with the same general color scheme though, aswe tried reversing it but it just didn't really look good. We ended up darkening the gradient to emphasize the curve of the earth which I think helps a lot and darkening the color of the blue landmasses. I think it's much better thanks to your feedback, so thanks everyone.



Gail-that's fine that you posted it on your website. Please attribute it to Platts rather than Cartotalk though.

cheers,
Claude

Attached Files

•  Nuke_Cover.jpg   75.99K   63 downloads