No replies to this topic

[Mike P.]

Hello from Baltimore... a looong time lurker here. I'm a graphic designer of 15 years, returning to school for my first formal classes in GIS (having dabbled in Arc for a while). Mostly working now with Illustrator/MAPublisher.

I noticed many fellow designers neglected maps in their publications; usually not a lot of time or money is allocated for maps beyond the basic stick drawing variety. Or I'll see an otherwise well-designed piece with a Google Map screenshot (even worse, satellite view). This despite the chance to enhance a design with maps that complement, with appropriate resolution and colors. Then there are the errors. Possibly room for a cartographic niche within design?

I've always been interested in maps of one form or other, particularly old roadmaps. So I created a road geek reference website, MDRoads.com, as an historical reference of Maryland's highway system. In researching for it, I've run across tons of old maps (really like the 40s-50s designs) and other records, in search of old decommissioned numbers, as well as proposals that, for better or worse, never came to be.